Inkstains
by Zigadenus
Summary: "You'll need to decide where you end and your principles begin. Although it's my personal feeling that the question should be structured the other way 'round." What looks like living is sometimes just survival. Hermione-centric work in progress, written in the conceptual universe of "Lies and Red Ink". Some graphic content.
1. Hidden Things

**_Author's Note:_** _This piece is probably best considered_ metafic: fiction inspired by other fiction. _It is written out of the same conceptual universe as_ Lies and Red Ink _, but I maintain that the latter story stands on its own as a complete work._ Inkstains, _here, is doing its own thing, both from stylistic and thematic perspectives. You need not consider it a sequel; it is at best an allied work, drawn from plot contained in its predecessor._

 _Formatting: there are parts of this story that cannot be formatted properly here on FFN. I highly encourage you to read it on Archive Of Our Own, where I also post as 'Zigadenus'._

* * *

 **Part I**

"Well, it's hardly any warmer in here!" Ronald quips. Harry smiles awkwardly, and fixes his attention on the task of brushing the snow out of little Lily's hair. The girl submits to this paternal effort with bad grace: she's spotted Crookshanks, and is desperate to chase after the aged tom. Hermione hopes, silently but with considerable asperity, that Crooks gives her a claw or two.

It's wishful thinking. Crooks can barely walk anymore, let alone defend himself from grabby children. And with his ailing heart, he shouldn't be made to flee a motivated aggressor. She sets her tea back down on the counter, and scoops her fluffy orange monster up into her arms. He rewards this rescue in his usual way, bumping his head up against her chin before settling against her chest. Lily's forlorn cry of "Kitty!" interrupts the tightness that's forming at the back of her throat.

"Kitty needs a nap, Lily." She means it to come across as kindly yet stern, but reckons she's probably managed only the latter. Maybe she'll make it up the stairs before there are any waterworks. Having a uterus doesn't mean she's equipped to deal with the repellant little things. Harry wanted 'em, Harry can cope with them. Auntie Hermie has much better things to do with her time.

She deposits Crooks in his basket near her desk, and resets the locking charm. As she sinks into her chair, she tangles her fingers in her curls until the tension between her shoulder blades migrates to her scalp.

It's not really Harry's children that are the problem. Except that it is.

He cannot possibly fail to realise that his offspring have become an arsenal mobilized upon a domestic battleground. Ginny is certainly aware of the subtext – or at least, she can't charitably conceive of any other reason for conspicuous absence from the combat zone. She can, of course, _uncharitably_ conceive of half a dozen.

She pushes the thoughts away, displacing them with a sheaf of revisions. _This_ is a fight she has some hope of winning. Not that she's at all motivated towards that particular end – her reviewers' suggestions are, for the most part, grounded, well-reasoned, and respectfully argued. The editorial office has done extremely well by her work, this time. She suspects a familiar hand of pulling some strings on her behalf, and thinks she ought to find some nicely understated trinket to send on to Amsterdam when she posts the rest of the holiday parcels. She doesn't know Tibs well enough to pick a book, but a fountain pen can hardly be taken amiss. His notes consistently betray that he prefers them to quills; there are never any of the mid-word halts that you see with quillwork, where someone has stopped to re-dip the nib.

She taps her own pen thoughtfully against her lip while contemplating how to rephrase the introduction's second paragraph. Holkiss (it _has_ to be Holkiss, this was his exact point eight issues ago) hasn't quite grasped why she's insisting upon including the new toxicological assay. If she can make it more obvious, somehow, that the secondary metabolites generated under low pH are neither likely to be formed, nor actually deleterious in circumneutral conditions… She isn't, after all, suggesting that anyone _drink_ this thing. There are much better ways of accessing cytoplasm than via intestinal villi. Perhaps that's the answer: remind them upfront that she's talking about injectables. A simple citation to her last paper is apparently much too subtle; best to spell it out in plain text.

This conceptual dragon slain, she reaches for her tea. Which is, naturally, sitting abandoned on the kitchen counter, two storeys beneath her.

She pokes her head into the stairwell, past the bounds of the silencing spell. The children's screams seem to be effected by cheerful romping. If they've torn the curtains down again, she'll certainly have some choice words for Harry. Ronald's transparent ploy to warm her to the joys of parenting would have marginally more hope of success had he picked some other - well-behaved - children as demonstrational exhibits. She hopes no one is expecting her to fix tea for the lot of them tonight.

No, thank goodness, it appears Ronald has risen to the occasion. He's stirring a pot of soup on the stovetop, while Harry constructs sandwiches. Bless them, they almost pass as functional adults, and about time. If she's lucky, she can snag her cup and slink back up to the attic before anyone is the wiser.

It sounds as though Harry has been apologizing for something the children have done. She decides she'd really rather not know. If she doesn't hear about it, she won't be compelled to fix it. Hear no evil, see no evil. She hesitates on the landing, as Ronald responds.

"Yeah, well. It's nice, actually, having them underfoot; I like being Uncle Ron. I always thought I'd have some of my own, you know?"

"You're still trying, though, aren't you?"

"I have no idea." His voice is completely flat.

"What do you mean, you're either doing it or—"

"Well, no, actually. I mean we are, we do. Just… I don't know if I believe her anymore."

Harry is slow in responding. "What, you think she might be taking contraceptives? Ron, that's… she wouldn't do that to you, go behind your back. Would she?"

"Hell, Harry. I just don't know. It's like living with a stranger, has been for ages."

"Come on. It's Hermione. We've known her since we were eleven."

"Yeah, I guess. She's just… dunno, different since we lost the baby."

"Have you tried _talking_ to her about that? You guys went through a rough patch, there in the beginning. And it changes people, they say."

"When?" He scoffs, "When would I talk to her, she's always buried in those fucking books. It's like it didn't even bother her. Just 'Oops, oh well, let's get on with the next thing.' I sometimes wonder…"

"It was almost five months along, though, wasn't it? Has she been to St Mungo's, maybe something happened."

"She said she went, said everything was fine up there."

"Then, you know, maybe it's just bad timing. It happens. Gin and I had a bloody _schedule_."

"Harry. That's my sister." His tone is only mock-aggrieved.

"All I'm saying is—"

"I hear you. It's just, how likely is it? I mean, here we are, very first time, right off the starting line, and then just nothing? For years?" He sighs, and stirs the soup again. His shoulders are creeping up to his ears, in what even she recognizes as a miserable, defensive hunch. "I thought we were perfect, I thought… It kills me that I don't even really trust her anymore. I wanted to give her everything, and she won't let me."

His plaintive words are a knife, twisting hard in her gut. She abandons the notion of retrieving her tea, and retreats to the safety of revisions.

He turns in early. It's not even 9 o'clock when she looks out her little window and notices that the house's lights aren't glowing across the unexpected snowdrifts anymore. She caps her biro, and resolves to fix things, if she can.

She crawls into bed nude. He's not sleeping; she can tell by the pitch of his breathing. She places a hand on his hip, and presses her lips against his bare shoulder as she curls a finger beneath the flannel waistband of his pajama bottoms. "Did you have a good afternoon with Harry and the kids? It looked like you were having a snowball fight."

"Yeah, they're great kids. Full of energy. Jamie will be a chaser, for sure, good arm on that boy." Despite his words, his voice lacks any real enthusiasm, and he hasn't made any effort to help her with his bottoms.

"I should have come out. I could use more exercise." She abandons his waistband, to trace instead the line of hair trending down from his navel. She can't make her intentions any clearer, and he's not stupid.

Indeed not. "Exercise, eh?" There's some genuine warmth in his voice, and she thinks he might be leering a bit. Good, things are moving in the right direction.

"Mmm. All sweating and hot and panting. Burn some of those extra calories."

He laughs, another good sign. Even better, he kicks off his bottoms and drawers.

She stretches back into the pillows as he buries his face in her breasts, and his hand in her quim. It doesn't take her long to find her fantasy lover behind closed eyes. She imagines one long finger tracing her collarbone, soft breath caressing her face as he leans close, not-kissing, not-touching, just observing her reactions. She opens her legs further, mechanically; she's so intent upon the imagined sensation of a fall of fine hair tickling her neck and the angle of her jaw as he leans ever closer, that she barely notices her husband's penetration.

And then, abruptly, his weight is gone, and so are half the bedcovers.

"It's just no good, Hermione. I'm tired of doing this with you."

"Tired of having sex?"

"Like this, yeah. I don't know if you've ever been into it, but right now you're just lying there and thinking of England or goddamn potions or something. I can't do this anymore."

"I…" His unexpected rejection hurts more than she'd ever thought it might. "Ronald, Ron, I'm sorry. I really am, I'm not very good at this—"

"You can learn anything else, Hermione. Why not this? Surely we've practised enough." His voice has taken a nasty edge.

She reaches out, fumbles to hold his hand beneath the quilts, and prepares to lie for all she's worth, "I wasn't disinterested, not at all. I was just enjoying so much how you make me feel. Just falling into those sensations, it's marvellous." Too much? She squeezes his hand, rubs the calloused pad of his thumb. "Maybe another night, hey?"

He pulls her into an embrace, tucking her head against his shoulder in answer. "Yeah, I guess maybe I'm just not in the mood."

Are they okay, then? She isn't sure. She makes a conscious effort to relax her shoulders, to lay comfortably in his arms. After long minutes of this, she makes another bid for their version of normalcy. "I was thinking of going out to the shops tomorrow. To finish up with the presents, I mean. Did you want to come with?"

"I guess so, I need to find something for Mum anyway."

"Aren't we just getting her something from the both of us?"

"Well, yeah of course, but she likes when I pick her out something special. Something just from me."

"Fair enough. I was thinking Diagon Alley, maybe? We could make a day of it, have lunch."

"Sounds good. Not the Leaky, though."

She laughs gently. It's a long-standing joke that Neville helps out in the kitchen. "No, certainly not. I saw the inside of Neville's _actual_ cauldron too many times to chance it."

She realizes her error immediately – she's made reference to potions. Ronald unwraps his arms from her, and stretches out on his side of the bed. A moment later, he leans over and kisses her cheek, perhaps in apology. "Goodnight, Hermione." He's trying, mostly. They both are.

And she hates this.


	2. Chehkov's Cat

**Part II**

There's rain tip-tapping against the window when she wakes. It's still dark, but Ronald, snoring faintly, has stolen the bedsheets again, and she's covered in gooseflesh. She eases out of bed, bundles up in a dressing gown, and steals downstairs to see about a cup of tea. Perhaps she'll make _crêpes_ for their breakfast. It's an effort she hasn't gone to in a while, but Ronald is always appreciative of any motions she makes towards domesticity. His winsome smile and lavish compliments are probably what prevent her doing it more often.

But failure isn't an option. She simply doesn't know how to do it, so instead she hunts out flour and eggs, milk and butter.

She's just cleaning up when he creaks down the stairs, sniffing at the air with what is likely comic charm. " _Good_ morning," he carols.

"It certainly is, although the rain will have made a mess of the streets. But I had an interesting idea for time-delaying potions while I was cooking." Why does she do this, why remind him of the places she goes in her head where he can't follow.

"Is that what you're working on, now?" He _never_ asks. If her brain is a caricatured opera, her conscience is hissing from one of the loges: _you should feel guilty_. Her conscience has a good view, but is usually [blessedly] hard to hear when she's busy at the conductor's stand.

She sifts confectioner's sugar across his plate and passes it to him, tip-toeing up to buss his unshaven cheek. She'll try including him, perhaps she can mitigate the damage, "Not yet, no. It's just a thought I had. I've just been working on revisions the past week." Revisions of what, he should ask. She's finally learned the art of brevity, learned not to overburden a conversation with entire abstracts.

He doesn't ask, but then his mouth _is_ full. He swallows, follows it with a gulp of tea. "Your crêpes are always fantastic. I think you do them better than Mum."

So still nothing, then. She manages a wan smile, and polite thanks.

He does the remainder of the washing up while she gathers their parcels, checking against her address book that each is appropriately labelled, before shrinking them into her bag. "I did that already," he tells her.

She bites back a sharp retort. Maybe he did. Maybe he even did it well. "Alright, I'll just go over mine, then. My head's been all over the place, who knows what I've written." She finds two incorrect postal codes, and tidies the writing on one of the cards. They're all his, of course. But there's a well-known saying about discretion and valour, so she holds her tongue.

Despite the rain, the morning goes well. They flit in and out of shops, and the rest of the Christmas list looks to be nearly accomplished. She checks each item – each person – off her To-Do list with neat, efficient strokes of her favourite biro. Eventually, he balks at tagging after her into Flourish and Blotts, and they go their separate ways. She'll meet him for lunch later, they agree. She browses idly for a while, but there's nothing here she'd feel comfortable sending to Tibs, and she's still resolved to do something in that direction. A fountain pen after all, then. It's properly impersonal to a Muggle, but she half-worries that it might be one of those odd gifts that will really tickle a wizard. Or worse, be taken as a political statement. If she wasn't quite convinced he used one, she'd never dare. Although surely no one who invites you to call them 'Tibs' can actually be on the fully-blown fascist/racist side of the pureblood spectrum, can they?

Ronald's late to their table at the bistro, and he's got George in tow. She's trying to write a quick note to enclose with the pen, and answers them distractedly. Hopefully she hasn't agreed to anything outrageous.

George plucks the paper out from beneath her fingers as she's folding it. "What's this then, Hermione? Love letters?" He laughs, "Ron, do you know about this?"

"It's a note to one of my editors; pass it back."

"'Tibs'? Has he got a tail, like catnip much? Haha, 'Tibs, with thanks for aaaallll your help and suggestions – ooh, suggestions, Ronnie, how do you like that? – best, Hermione.' Well, that's predictably dull."

She rolls her eyes, and snatches it before he can grub it up. Really, though, she's glad George is there. He fills in all of the deadly empty spaces where she has nothing to say.

They offer wrapping services at the Owl Post, so while Ronald sorts out the rates for all their parcels, she is able to address and send this little token before she thinks better of it. She knows the editorial office's address by heart; all that's left is scratching 'Attn: S. Tiberius Prince' at the top of the column.

She doesn't quite manage to pass it beyond Ronald's line of sight.

"'Tibs', eh?"

She shrugs in answer, and wonders if he'll leave it alone.

He does, at least until they've apparated into the back garden, when he appears to finally piece one and one together. "Say, wasn't Snape a Prince? Or his mother, I mean?"

 _Yes_ , she nods.

"Any connection, do you suppose?"

"I don't know. Probably not a close one. It's an old Continental family, there have got to be a few still knocking about." And it's the truth of it. She _doesn't_ know. She's wondered, certainly, but there's never been anything more than _very_ circumstantial evidence to suggest it. But Ronald doesn't know about the first paper she published, and she's at a loss as to how to explain that Tibs has put his editorial oar in most of her work from the very beginning. She thinks maybe, just maybe, it was her coauthor's name that snagged his attention; she's been given to understand that he doesn't usually handle junior articles, and that she has thus been an exception. She's acutely aware it's a paper castle built in a windstorm, and that she ought to know better than to reason in advance of firm evidence. Or without any evidence, for that matter.

She rattles the key into the lock on the door. It's sticking again. "Ronald, I do wish you'd take a minute or two and look into this."

He rolls his eyes, sighs, and casts _Alohomora_.

"Not quite what I meant. Doing that all the time is what's making it stick." She's scolding him. Again. Distraction's a useful tactic.

And oh, but the universe is going to provide her with a distraction, all right.

Crookshanks usually mewls around her feet when she comes in, butting his head against her calves and ensuring that she's well-decorated in crinkly orange hairs. He'll act like she's been gone a decade, even if she's only walked down to fetch the post. The past few years, he's given her enough time to achieve the kitchen – it's cold by the open door, so she doesn't really look for him until he fails to attend to the tell-tale sound of the can opener. "Ronald? Ronald. Have you seen Crooks?" She's standing there with an open tin of catfood in one hand, and the pit of her stomach somewhere down on the floor.

Ronald is, predictably, no help, and with each room, her dread metastasizes. For a moment, when she finally finds Crooks curled on the antiseptic-white bedlinens in the spare room, she is relieved, and can actually draw breath. In the very next instant, she realizes the truth.

She seats herself, woodenly, on the edge of the bed, and cuddles his limp body in her arms. He's so much smaller, somehow, with his fur lying flat. She isn't aware that she's crying until she notices her tears dampening the spot behind his ears, where her fingers are tracing comforting old paths.

She hasn't cried since before the war.

She doesn't want Ronald's arms around her. He's never even made a pretence of liking her bandy-legged, squashed-faced, perpetually scowling old friend. She pushes him away. He doesn't belong in this room. This room is where she takes sanctuary, where she is tiny and broken and helpless and a miserable, crying child again. She tries to explain this but can't get the words out properly, not past this bruise in her chest, this persistent hematoma surely spreading beneath her ribs. "Leave, just leave me be," she finally manages, in great sobbing gulps.

"Fine," he snaps, rubbing his hands on the thighs of his trousers, as if to brush her away.

He slams the door closed when he leaves the house. The vibration knocks something down; she can hear glass shatter. It shakes her out of crying. She doesn't do well with loud noises. In addition to the snot and tears dripping down her face, there's a cold trickle of sweat dampening her armpits, trailing down between her breasts. She swallows hard. Just something broken.

When she can trust her legs to hold her upright, she sets out to investigate the damage, carefully cradling Crookshanks in her arms. It's their wedding picture that's fallen off the mantle. The glass is everywhere. She crunches through it, and picks up the frame. The little Ronald figure is gesticulating wildly; Hermione is hiding her face in her veil. There's a great gash across it, where the glass poked into the photograph. Brilliant. Fitting. She drops it back onto the floor – she can't very well carry Crooks and the frame.

She nearly runs flat up against Ronald as she stumbles into the kitchen, legs still occasionally quivering.

"What the hell happened in here?" He's looking past her, into the sitting room.

"It fell. When you closed the door." She readjusts Crooks in her arms, holding him closer. Defensively.

"Bloody hell. I'll… I'll clean it up. I, uh, I was out digging. For him. Under that tree he always used to get stuck in."

It's perfect, and of course it's necessary, and _of course_ this sets her off again. She sniffs valiantly, and bites hard at the side of her cheek.

Ronald has routed up a box. He glances at her, gestures.

"Out there," she tells him. It is somehow too gruesome to do this on the kitchen floor.

The rain has slacked off, but she gets drenched anyway, kneeling in the dead wet grass near the raw wound he's gouged into the garden. She settles Crookshanks into the box, tipping his scowling face down so that his head is curled over his paws. A claw snags in her sweater, and she nearly begins sobbing again, thinking of all the scratched furniture in her attic study. She hesitates, as she's closing the box. Indecision. Sentimentality gets the better of her – it always does – and she prises the cardboard back open to unclip his collar for a keepsake.

She scoops the muddy earth back into the hole with her bare hands. There should be some inspired eulogy for this last childhood friend. All the rest have grown on, have changed, have disappeared. Have died. And have disappointed. But the words that come to her are neither elegant nor poetic, they are only honest: You were ugly. You were an unwanted thing. You were even, objectively, a right pain in the arse, sometimes. But I loved you anyway, because I saw something like myself in you.


	3. Memory Drawer

**Part III**

She spends a long time washing the mud from her hands. The warm water burns at first, as she works out the stiffness and cold. There's a stubborn bit of earth beneath her fingernails. But she can't wash today away, no matter how long she stands here at the sink.

She catches Ronald looking at the collar on the counter. He – wisely – says nothing. But she should dry her hands, and take it up to the drawer she keeps her memories in.

Not her literal memories, of course. Pensieve silver frightens her. The notion of removing one's history is aberrant, abhorrent. How do you make decisions, if you haven't your experiences to draw from? And then there's that rarely-acknowledged part of her that dislikes Pensieve silver for certain personal slights, the way it had ruthlessly attacked inchoate daydreams, ripping off their wings before she'd even thought to release them from their cocoons.

"I'll fix tea, yeah?" Ronald interrupts her thoughts, rattling a frying pan onto the stove.

"No, don't bother, there should still be casserole left over from the other night. I'm not really hungry."

"Hermione, he was a cat."

"I'm actually aware of that."

"That's not what I meant, and you know it."

"And I'm aware of what you meant. That I'm more worked up about this than is warranted." She turns, finally, to face him.

"Well."

"I'm still not hungry." _And you can't make me._ It's so petty. She needs to get out of here before she says something that she'll regret. Her fingers close protectively over the collar. "I'm going to go upstairs and put this away."

He begins to say something, stops. Swallows, visibly. There is a piercing sharpness in the way he's looking at her that renders her trapped, like some small creature in oncoming headlights, wondering what he'll say. "Be fast about it, then. I need to talk to you."

What nonsense now? She'd rather curl up in the guest bed with a book, try to forget as much of today as possible. Even grinding through the last of the revisions holds no appeal. How lonely the attic will be without him! She presses her lips firm, and unlocks the bottom drawer of her wardrobe. There are any number of little trinkets and mementos in here. Old holiday cards from her parents, little school-days gifts from Harry, the Weasleys. And her bridal veil (she didn't keep the gown; it was too mucked over from trudging through the meadow at the Burrow, not worth salvaging). She sets Crookshanks' collar gently atop the filmy gauze, and relocks the drawer. Nostalgia, bitter and sweet, will have to wait upon Ronald's absence or his patience, the latter of which seems thin this evening.

Why does it feel as if she's marching to the guillotine? It can't be some latent ability at divination, else she'd have sensed earlier the misery that today intended to mete out.

Perhaps it's just his quiet, which is breathing its presence into the dining room, a living thing that writhes about his still form. He's seated at the table, elbows resting on the honeyed wood and face lowered into his palms.

"Did you want me to heat the casserole?" she asks, gently. She places a hand upon his shoulder.

He flinches from her touch. "Just sit down." His voice is rough, creaking past his clenched jaw.

She seats herself across from him. She wants something solid between their bodies. She waits. One of the taps in the kitchen sink is dripping, she can hear it from where she's seated. She's about to rise and attend to it, when he finally begins:

"You've been acting like a real human being. It's weird, you know."

She draws in a sharp breath. Holds it. She knows exactly where he's going with this, and she hasn't the faintest clue.

"You've blubbered over that cat for, what? Hours, now."

She nods; there's a chance at conciliation here, she thinks. "He was so old, wasn't he? I suppose it's better this way, you could see it was getting hard for him. This must have been peaceful, anyway."

"A cat, Hermione." He's gripping the edge of the table, now, and he's not meeting her gaze.

She doesn't know what he wants. She folds her hands beneath her chin. Penitent, making herself smaller.

"I'm sort of shocked you _can_ cry." It's a needling jab, essayed with narrowed eyes. Testing, probing, a stick poked in through the bars of her nuptial cage.

"What are you saying," she deliberately does not ask: she commands.

He lifts his eyes to the ceiling (anywhere but her?), sighs, and gives a disgusted little shake of his head. "The only reason we even got married is because you were pregnant."

"And whose fault is that?" She's on the defensive now, because she can tell that, yes, they are indeed talking about something other than what they're saying.

"You're a witch. And you're the one who came into _my_ room."

She nods, exhales through her nose. It's true, but –

"It doesn't matter. Hermione. Stop." He raises a hand against her opening lips. "The point is, we have nothing. And you cried more for a fucking cat than you ever did for my son."

His words are scalpel-sharp, and they're finally getting into the flesh of things, where there's a long-festering abscess that he's cut open. She's strangely fascinated by its discharge – pulpy, bloody, gray-green and yellow purulence brimming up to the surface. Maybe they can just have this out, once and for all. "It was never going to be 'your son', Ron." She says it slowly, calmly, "It was developmentally disordered. It was never even going to be a baby."

"He."

"No, Ronald. 'It.'" Why, after all this time, can't she get this across to him? It's not complicated.

He just shakes his head again, and turns away, looking into the sitting room. "I cleaned up the glass. From the picture. That's totally fucked, by the way. I can't help thinking that's a sign."

"Oh for godssakes, Ronald, don't be an idiot. It fell because _you_ slammed the door."

"Yeah, I did a lot of things. And I think you did, too." He pushes his chair back. The sound is jarring, and she realizes that their voices have not been raised. If anything, they are speaking in hushed tones, only scant decibels above tense hateful whispers.

Who are they hiding from?

"What do you want, then." She speaks crisply, normally, and again does not ask.

He stands, takes a step towards her. There is something in the set of his shoulders, the faint shaking of his balled fists, that sparks — for the first time — a sickening coil of panic in her stomach. Perhaps she has been unwise, in pushing, in demanding. Taunting.

Has she cowered, does he see fear in her eyes? He rocks back on his heels, anger or mortification blushing clear to the roots of his ginger mop. "I… I don't know what I want. No, that's not true. I… You should go."

"Go?" She grimaces. He's speaking some foreign language, surely.

"I'm not bloody well moving back into the Burrow when it's my family made the down-payment. Your parents' flat is empty."

"I don't understand." She does. She is horribly certain that she understands exactly what he means.

"I mean _go_. I want you, and all of Snape's fucking books, out of here, gone. I can't stand this anymore, I—" He breaks off on a strangled, hitching sound, and careens through the doorway into the sitting room. She hears him breaking things. Christmas ornaments and framed photographs of them, probably.

It is funny-not-funny how little this upsets her.

What do you take, in a fire? In some ways it would be kinder if her life were crumbling to cinders a bit more literally.

The books, naturally. She'll start at the top, with the most important things. They aren't hers, anyway; she can't permit them to burn, not even in a metaphor. They represent a legacy that she is merely curating against the day she stumbles into someone who will need them as much as she has. Knowledge – all of it – is, after all, a gift. And gifts create obligations.

The work keeps thinking at bay; she can't spare a moment in consideration when there are shelves upon shelves of dusty, worn volumes to painstakingly shrink to postage stamps. She'll be half a month repairing them if she isn't careful – too many are layered over with protective spells to accomplish this task quickly. Page protection, anti-mildewing, charms to fix the bindings in place, emphasize the ink, translate. It's a nightmare, the amount of work that the conservation alone represents. She doubts he ever slept much; long nights of obsessively painstaking work are written in every tome, a transcript of near-crippling insomnia.

And abject loneliness, too, she senses.

You can see the shape of a man's mind through his library. She is still a bit leery of the places this collection hints at. There is so much compulsion and attention to detail recorded here: every volume seems to have a scrap of paper in it somewhere, cross-indexing another reference; carefully pencilled notes decorate margins throughout; obscure documents abound. It's a personal tragedy writ tiny and cramped – and getting smaller with every shrinking spell she applies to it.

It's nearly midnight by the time she's finished. The room looks obscene, heavy shelves standing empty and violated. All of the truly important things in her life have been reduced to a carpet bag. She tucks her revisions atop the books, turns off the lamp at her desk, and bids the attic a silent farewell.

She cruises their bedroom haphazardly. The bed's still unmade from the morning, ghosts of their marriage outlined in rumpled sheets. Exhaustion has sunk claws into her, and she'd like nothing better than to burrow down here, beneath quilts and illusions. Instead, she sweeps cosmetics into a bag, and wrestles her old school trunk from storage. It's still filled with adolescent detritus. She shrinks it all with only a spare glance, and heaps in armfuls of clothing. It's like ripping off an elastoplast: best done quickly.

Finally, she kneels before the wardrobe and unlocks the bottom drawer. It was eons ago that she last looked in here, another lifetime. She tips a pair of dress shoes out of a box and kicks them under the bed with no little satisfaction. They always hurt her toes anyway, and the box will be put to better use housing her little treasures.

It seems a paltry, pathetic mound, when all's said and done. She picks up the veil last. Should she take it? Perhaps she can ceremonially shove it into a fireplace, presuming she can find one. Toast crumpets over it. She sighs, and shakes it out. A piece of cardstock, postcard-sized, flutters out of the folds. Seeing this again is nearly a physical blow. She'd known all along that it was there, but she'd made herself forget (this is a talent she has).

For a live grenade or toxic viper, it is certainly nothing extraordinary, just plain white paper with a London postmark and eight simple words bleeding across it in scarlet ink.

Some of that ink has lifted out of the paper; there are word-shaped smudges stained into the veil's gauze. Snaking tendrils of contamination.

She picks it up between two fingers, gingerly, as though it might attack her. Which is absurd – it's already done that, and she barely noticed the bite. Welcomed it, even. But surely that was some other woman, whose frenzied delight propelled her into hours of grueling research? Who meticulously investigated, through subtle channels, every hiding place she could envision? Who waited on tenterhooks, with the publication of every manuscript, achingly desperate for some new clue, some new scrap of evidence? Who, ultimately, acknowledged with grim acceptance that this was a cruel joke or perhaps the effects of a time-delayed enchantment.

She bows her head, as if in atonement, and solemnly crumples the paper, rendering it harmless at last.


	4. Flight, Fallen

**Part IV**

Ronald is standing at the kitchen counter when she descends the stairs. He is eating the leftover casserole, cold, directly from the dish. She sees this as a prelude to his next month or so, and is spitefully pleased.

He meets her eyes in the mirror of the night-black window, and swallows. Is he going to speak to her reflection? He's been doing that for years, and she's past the obligation of listening.

She pulls her boots on, and walks out of her life.

The grass is frozen, and makes a satisfying crunch with every step; she lifts the latch on the garden gate, and continues around to the front of the house. She's going to check the letterbox one last time. Because you just never know.

But of course there's nothing there.

She closes the box, and leaves the key in the door. Perhaps Ronald will want to keep up the electricity, which he'll have a hard time doing if he can't get at the utility bills. Really, though, she should probably cancel everything, else she'll end up paying it. The thought of all the new complications stretching before her is nearly overwhelming. Now that she's checked the post, she has no idea what to do next. Everything? Nothing.

She sits down on the front step, shrunken trunk and carpet bag of books at her feet. She can hear Ronald shuffling up the stairs to bed. The lights go off. She wonders if he'll sleep.

Showing up at 12 Grimmauld Place would be the easiest. But if she does, and it transpires this is only a tiff, she'll be telegraphing undue alarm directly to Molly. And if it's not? Well, Harry's a Weasley in every way that counts. He'll bow out as a non-combatant at the earliest sign of open warfare. Moreover, although she'll never rub his nose in it, she remembers only too well how they shunned her over the Firebolt. She is not under any illusions as to how battle lines will be drawn should she ever force the issue.

Her parents' flat, then. Ronald's incorrect: it's not 'empty' in any meaningful sense, but they're also not in residence at the moment. It's somewhere to sleep, anyhow. And she'd like very much to do that. Maybe just for a month or two, wake up when things have lost their radioactive glow.

She pulls herself reluctantly to her feet. The cold, or some delayed reaction now that the adrenaline is running down, has her shivering.

She closes her eyes and concentrates on her memory of her mother's kitchen, with its spotless white cupboards, gleaming appliances, and surgically clean smell. There are several moments of blinding pressure as her atoms rearrange themselves, and then she's there, stumbling against the stainless steel refrigerator.

It's been years since she's seen this room. But that's alright – it's the one place in their lives that never changes, because it's not as if it ever gets used for anything. She steadies herself against the counter, and notes that there is at least sweetener – not sugar, her mother's been on a diet as long as Hermione can remember - in one of the glass canisters. At least she won't have to run down to the shops before a cuppa in the morning.

Morning. It's not that far off, but when she runs the calculation in her head, there is still plenty of time to call to Melbourne. Unfortunate, that, but she can hardly impose without their permission. She pads into their shared office, and seats herself in front of the telephone. She has to look up the number, but she finds it eventually, so there's no putting this off.

"Hello?" A woman's voice from the other side of the globe.

"Mother. It's… well, it's me. Hermione."

"I expected so when I saw the number. Why are you in our flat?" _Our_ flat. A word that excludes her.

"I… I need a place to stay for a few days. Until I can sort something of my own."

"I find it disconcerting that you've broken in so readily. But then, you don't have a good sense of boundaries."

There is nothing she can say to this, except "I'm sorry. I'll leave if it's a problem."

"I'll discuss it with Lester and call you back." _Lester_ , not 'your father'. There is a click, and the line goes dead. She sets the phone back in its cradle, and carefully touches nothing else on the desktop.

She rubs her eyes. They're burning from the tears shed earlier. She draws in deep, calming breaths, trying to trick her body into releasing the tension bound up in her stiffening limbs. This was a monumentally fuck-witted idea; she could have sprung for a room at the Leaky. Or even some Muggle place, if she didn't want to advertise to half the wizarding world. What has she hoped for, anyway? Sanctuary? The notion's laughable.

The phone ringing startles her half to death, a statement on the efficacy of deep breathing. "Yes?"

"Move my suits out of the closet in the guest bedroom. You can sleep there, although I expect you to wash all the bedding before you leave."

"Of course. I appreciate this very much."

"Then don't leave a mess. I will expect everything in its rightful place. We're back on the 20th. Clear out before then." She hangs up before Hermione can stammer more gratitude. It's just as well, probably.

Alright. She has a place to sleep. That's something, isn't it?

There is considerable irony in that her sprawling life with all its semi-secret tendrils should be reduced to such small victories, and that these miniscule skirmishes should seem so overwhelming. Take the suits, for instance: she sits on the foot of the bed, staring at them. There aren't even that many, a couple dozen, perhaps, but it's more effort than she has the will to tackle. In the morning. In the morning, she'll sort Everything out.

Her Everythings have gotten smaller, too. Although maybe that's a mercy.

She wakes at the crack of noon, with the sensation that she's displaced parts of herself again, forgotten them somewhere: a public loo, a grimy café, a shop in Knockturn Alley that she wouldn't want anyone to see her sneaking out of. Someplace like that. Unsanitary at best, disreputable on the pendulum's backswing.

Her day's all disordered, so maybe it's just down to the lack of caffeine. There aren't any teabags (are they on another health kick?), and the stash of frozen coffee beans is playing at being invisible when she pokes through the near-barren freezer. Nor is there anything she can scavenge for breakfast: a lonely box of bran in a cupboard, a plastic jar of whey, forlorn Worcestershire sauce in an otherwise empty refrigerator. She runs a glass of cold water from the tap – can she manage a shower and a toothbrush before the corner shop? Is the corner shop even still there?

She's forgotten to bring her toothbrush, so she swipes a fresh one from the drawer after a few minutes' debate. And since she's forced to go out anyway, she ought to track down a letting agency or two. 'Home' just _isn't_ , after all. Having stolen a toothbrush, it's only another small step to borrowing one of the pert suits. It fits well enough, and she can't very well turn up to an agency's office in denims and a Weasley sweater.

The rents are outrageous. She considers swallowing her pride and scouting something on the wizarding side, but her Order of Merlin allowance, once changed for pounds, does stretch to a cramped bedsit that she tours on the fifth day. The agent's smile is brittle: what does a well-dressed young woman want with this tip? She'd prudently removed her wedding band, which would otherwise have been an answer.

In the meantime, she's managed to buy respectable Muggle clothing of her own, have the suit dry-cleaned, replace the stolen toothbrush, procure a ready supply of caffeine, navigate the purchase of a mobile telephone, and even lay in a stock of comestibles from Sainsbury's. This flurry of busy-ness has kept her mind from dwelling on the fact that Ronald appears entirely serious, and neither of her closest friends, the sainted Potters, have been in touch.

She abandons her parent's flat for the dismal little bedsit with a day to spare, and springs for a cleaning service to scour the place of her occupancy. She leaves the cleaners' receipt on the kitchen table, mute evidence that she's kept to her end of the bargain. Her mother would've cleaned all over again anyway, if she'd had to rely upon Hermione's presumed incompetence. Magic doesn't kill germs, or so her mother believes. Her mother is not exceedingly fond of magic, admittedly with good reason.

She makes one trip into Diagon Alley, to send Ronald an owl. It's a quick note, cold and devoid of any grovelling. Just her new address, and a request that he forward on any mail that she receives at the house. She's not going to be the first to crack, and besides: she's happier this way. Isn't she? She has all the time in the world to work on her research now, which explains entirely why she has yet to complete her revisions.

She finds both the cheery strands of music that pour from shop doors and the unrestrained festoons of Christmas greenery and glittering lights to be utterly oppressive. She hurries back through the slushy streets, fleeing reminders that the rest of the world has _not_ imploded into a yellow room with bed, stove, and dingy narrow shower stall.

The bedsit's not conducive to work. It's barely conducive to sleep; she can hear Next Doors' television set late into the night. So she finds herself drinking coffee at midnight in a little Hungarian café. There's no Christmas music, and the only decorations are bright rustic patterns on the china, and the embroidered scarf that drapes across the dessert display at the till. The coffee comes bitter and so dark it hurts her teeth, and the walrus-mustached man who sets down his invariable paper to prepare her order smiles knowingly at her when he selects a marzipan to perch on the edge of her saucer. He's someone's uncle, surely, he has that kindly look.

So she comes here, evenings and afternoons too. She spreads out her revisions because there isn't anything else to do, between marzipans. When she finishes the last edits, she treats herself to a slice of rakott palacsinta. This is the highlight of her week, although she tries not to frame it that way. Laszlo (because of course his name is Laszlo) sets it on her tiny table with a flourish, but ruins it by telling her that the café will be closed over the upcoming holiday. She nods affably, thanks him, and wonders where else she can hide until exhaustion walks her home at night.

An owl flutters against her window later that evening. It's carrying a plague-infested note from Harry, a few hasty lines that assure her that they'd love to see her for Christmas dinner, but understand entirely that she might not feel comfortable joining them. Well, now _that's_ been made certain, hasn't it? She shoos the owl away into the London night, and unshrinks a few books. She'll get started on her idea for time-delaying the reactive and otherwise-toxic effects of a particular class of antivenins, a Christmas game of 'Howdunit'. If she ever solves the mystery, maybe she'll get another note. She wants to tell herself comforting bedtime stories: you are not alone, not really.


	5. Nuestra Soledad

**Part V**

Antivenins are a dead end. Dead and gone. The sheer volume that would have to be administered into the bloodstream is impossible to accomplish via the kind of circumspect encapsulation she's envisioned as a method for controlled release.

She frowns at the graveyard of scrap paper littering her table. It's the first time she's really had a good look at this problem, faced it square-on. First, there was Ronald, who might have broken his sterling track record and actually been curious about what she was working on, and second, she didn't want to know it was impossible. She still doesn't.

She retrieves another cup of coffee from Laszlo. This afternoon's marzipan is tinted a delicate pink, and covered over in luscious dark chocolate. She nibbles it delicately, and reassesses the mess on her table. The way she sees it, there are two big problems: neurotoxins, and disseminated intravascular coagulopathy. She wasn't close enough to see drooping eyelids, and his speech wasn't slurred, but he was definitely in the throes of muscle fasciculation. The scene's writ large in her memory, with the trembling, helpless spasms progressing into rigor, his fingers curled to arachnoid claws. It's the acetylcholine pathway that's under attack, the neurotoxins binding to receptors. She flips through her dog-eared copy of the British National Formulary – isn't myasthenia gravis an acetylcholine receptor problem? What do they use for that?

Neostigmine. It's been on the books since 1931, and what's more, _it's been used for snakebites_. No one gives him credit for being a brilliant Muggle, the way they say he was a brilliant wizard. She thinks he was probably just plain brilliant, irrespective of descriptive nouns.

But there are still the cytotoxic effects. The phospholipases break down cells walls, rupturing them so that all their contents spew out into the bloodstream. But that could be dealt with. Blood Replenishing Potion if nothing else. No, it's the pro-thrombin-like molecules that interfere with the fibrinogen cascade that are the kiss of death. They initiate microscopic clotting throughout the smallest vessels of the body. Enough of them would turn blood to jelly, but what happens is a more prolonged agony: the clots tear through and occlude capillaries and small vessels; meanwhile, the venom reaction progresses, using up the remaining platelets in this sadistic co-option of the body's repair system. And without platelets, the wounds inflicted by the passage of micro-clots can't be patched, and so the victim begins to bleed out, into their tissues.

But his skin was paper-white, and while he bled out, it was rather more external than you'd expect from coagulopathy. So she doesn't think she's wrong about anticoagulants, but then why didn't he begin to leak uncontrollably when he smashed through the plate glass window? Surely there were cuts and scrapes. To manage such precise timing, between the Great Hall and the Shrieking Shack, when he _couldn't_ have known what was coming… Well, it's beyond the realm of plausibility.

Even with anticoagulants, he would still have needed countless transfusions, or better yet, cryoprecipitates of fresh-frozen plasma. At this point, her various scenarios necessarily involve co-conspirators, accomplices. If he'd had them, he would never have been in the position of desperately needing them in the first place.

Occam's razor is so sharp you might not even feel it if you chose to slit your wrists.

She flips back through her notebook, and peruses again the pages she's marked in the heap of books now surrounding her feet. All the evidence points in one direction, and the only thing that's clear from all her equations and calculations is that which has been obvious from the beginning: Severus Snape had been well and thoroughly fucked.

But her original idea, using elastin or alginates to construct coatings for dried, pelletized precipitates of therapeutic potions, is a good one. A touch brilliant, even, as it's applicable to any number of different compounds, and you could vary the thickness of the coating, so as to sustain release over longer durations. So this hasn't all been in vain. She writes it up as a Short Note for the theory section; someone else is welcome to apply the requisite elbow-grease. Besides, citations all look the same, whether it's a full study or not. It takes her a couple days to get a submission-worthy draft prepared, and by that time it's Christmas.

It's snowed again, and Diagon Alley is strangely hushed. Everyone is home with their families, opening gifts, getting started on the brandied eggnog, salivating at the prospect of roast goose and all the trimmings. She feels like a leper, squeaking through the untrammeled snow on her way to hire a post owl. She should buy one of her own, or demand that Ronald give her theirs. But there's a 'no pets' policy on her lease that she'd have to skirt. This is easier, if somewhat uncomfortable. Hannah Longbottom waves at her as she passes through the Leaky, but she brandishes her envelope on high, gestures in the direction of the Post, and escapes any sympathy or forced holiday cheer.

She should celebrate, she thinks. She's got another paper over the transom, and that's an accomplishment. But the Hungarian café is closed, so she can't indulge in the next thing she was intending to try, a confection called an Eszterházy torta.

Apparating home holds no appeal. There's nothing to do there. So she walks, and takes the Underground, and walks some more. Nothing's open, but she browses windows for lack of anything better to do. Well, not 'nothing' – there's an off-license with a neon 'open' sign. She supposes they must do brisk business; by early evening surely the glitter has either worn off the Christmas tree, or people are discovering that their supply of social lubricant is insufficient to the task of dealing with Uncle Horace.

She grabs a bottle of something, nearly at random, from the tequila shelf. At £37, it should constitute enough celebration. And the streets have gotten dark, so she'd best be on her way home.

Mezcal. It sounds exotic, anyway. The label's plain, a winged woman with a headdress; she looks a bit Aztec, but could just as easily be Mayan. Where is Oaxaca, anyway? She thinks it might be one of those lush, Mexican seaside states. Someplace where you can stand on a weatherworn cliff and hear waves crashing in on a beach so bright it hurts your eyes. Or with rugged volcanic mountains cloaked in mist. Somewhere that's as far away from this London bedsit as to be another planet.

Aztec, Mayan, or commercial fantasy in pen-and-ink scribble, it's clear that this little figure on the bottle is no delivering angel. She's too nude for starters, and her wings are birdlike, not divine. By rights, she should be Mayahuel, goddess of agave. But she's only got 2 breasts, which means she can't be summarily indicted for nourishing drunkenness. So perhaps instead she is Quetzalpetlatl, the winged serpent's sister. In that case, the wings make sense – some things must run even in mythological families, no? If that's the case, then this iconography is a warning: don't make any decisions about bed partners while under the influence. Fair enough, she's certainly staying in, not that anyone's apt to want to shag her anyhow. _Nuestra_ _soledad_ , that translates to solitude or loneliness, doesn't it?

She pours a finger in the bottom of a glass, then sips experimentally. It's rougher than tequila, with smoky overtones. Drinking it will be akin to self-flagellation, maybe, instead of festivity. The notion appeals to her, and she pours another finger – might as well do this properly.

But if she's going to get plastered, she should have Hangover Relief on hand. She sets her glass down with a sigh. The best laid plans, ground to a halt on her failure to hit up the apothecary when she was in Diagon Alley.

Well, but she pulled an 'O' in Potions. Just because she hasn't brewed anything in ages doesn't mean she can't. She's a bloody _expert_ in Potions, according to her publication record. Times past, brewing might have precipitated a row with Ronald, but that's not an issue. Or it might have made her maudlin, but hell, she's holding up alright so far, isn't she?

She tips detritus out of her trunk, and arranges her old potions kit across her bed. Cauldron, scales, glassware, dried ingredients, mortars, pestles, stirring rods, aha! Manual in which she'd carefully transcribed the instructions Professor Snape had written on the board. Good, because it's been years, and it would be too pitifully ironic if she poisoned herself inadvertently.

When did they brew Hangover Relief? Fifth year, and just before the holiday break, wasn't it? Sure it was, she remembers muffling her grin, and watching most of Slytherin do the same. His instructions that day were tacit permission to get completely soaked, so long as they didn't inconvenience him or Madam Pomfrey in the morning. The other Gryffindors hadn't appreciated the gift or the joke.

She dices, slices, stirs and strains. Look, she's being a responsible adult, planning to be a productive member of society come morning. She snorts into her glass. Damn, it's empty again. She refills it, two fingers, five, who's even counting anymore? She haphazardly clears her bed, and settles back against the headboard to think about Professor Snape.

She'd never gone to his office hours. If she'd actually imposed upon his time, he might have ended their conversation. Arms-length. She knew enough to see that as the key. No favours in class, no acknowledgement of the dialogue carried out on parchment. Was it a flirtation via citation? She certainly wanted his good opinion, but she thinks her younger self would probably have been mildly appalled at her illicit daydreams of his fingertips tracing the mound of her breasts. She trails her own fingers down, expertly popping the buttons, one at a time. She is visualizing his hands performing this task, his eyes intent upon the flush she can feel expanding across her chest. It's the liquor, surely.

But suppose she had trekked down to the dungeons? Turned up in some Muggle civvies? No, she'd have gone in her school uniform, itchy wool stockings and all. Hermione Granger didn't break rules. Much.

She can't envision any linear flow of speech that would lead from Point A to Point Up on the Prep Bench. But logic and likelihood don't matter. He'll just back her against the bench, snare her with some oblique, cunning remark. He wouldn't undo her shirt after all, just lift it to press his cool hand against the bare skin at the bottom of her ribcage – a challenge: do we go on from here? Say the word.

She'll have given him a knowing smile (how? She doesn't know anything. Best not.) She would instead shake her hair back, lift herself up on the bench, and let her legs dangle wide. Slattern she can manage; one quick burst of bravery before her brain gets the better of her. "Too damnably obvious, so utterly Gryffindor." He'll laugh and say something like that, and assure her that these non-faults can be corrected with some judicious education. He'll linger over that word, as he unhooks her brassiere, lets it fall into her lap, onto the floor.

He'll trace little sigils, alchemical symbols across her skin. A triangle. "Fire", he'll breathe, his face lowered to hers, his nose nudging aside her hair to impart this wisdom in a whisper. "Salt, wealth, the body" – a circle transected by a line, centered on the aureola of one breast. And then with his other hand, along the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, an inverted triangle, transected: "Earth". His fingers will rest there a moment, testing. She'll shift, in invitation, or perhaps she'll make some little sound that will render him susceptible to the same desire that's burning through her like lightning, shimmering like a cascade of magnesium sparks.

Whichever it is, he'll slip those fingers delicately beneath the elastic of her knickers, easing them down. He'll notice the dampness; his observational skills won't have been dulled by mere passion. Perhaps he'll rub his thumb along the gusset, and smirk at her. He's pleased with himself, and she's pleased with herself, that she's pleased him, and while she's thinking through this tangle, he'll grasp her ankles and lift her legs onto the bench, so that her center is splayed out before him like some intriguing specimen.

He'll fold her skirt back, and upon her mons, he'll trace another glyph: circle subtended by cross. "Venus", he'll intone, stroking the tail of the cross down, down into the damp thatch surrounding her eager vulva.

"Please," she'll gasp.

But he'll ignore her uncultured begging; she should know better than to interrupt a lecture. He'll tell her so, keeping that finger motionless inside her folds, while he carefully lifts her flyaway hair from where it's clinging to her face. When she begins to writhe against his hand, he'll withdraw it, his mouth a little moue of disappointment. "Really, Miss Granger. I expected you to exhibit more self-control." But this chastisement will be mockery only, made apparent in the way he guides her fingers, demonstrating how he would like her to pleasure herself. He'll step back to watch, one of those elegant fingers gently tapping his lip – it will be the one he's just had inside of her, she's certain of it, and certain he will want her to deduce it.

He'll quirk an eyebrow, thoughtful, and reach blindly—unerringly—for the ceramic pestle resting in the mortar behind him. It's cold against her folds, and the sheer _indecency_ of this sets her pulse racing. He'll draw it slowly down her vulva, resting it finally at the crux of her cunt. "Did anyone tell you to stop?" He'll inquire, and she redoubles her efforts over her clit. He'll insert the pestle slowly, fingers barely brushing her as he does so, eyes bottomless. Her body warms this foreign object, and soon she's only aware of the rhythmic way he'll drive it into her, in time with the undulations of her hips as her orgasm crests.

But why has she done this? Why has she so relentlessly sexualized him in her mind? What is wrong with her, that she would repay his nobility and sacrifice by desecrating his memory in this way?

And anyway, he wouldn't have wanted _her_.

Flinching with disgust, she pulls the pestle from between her legs, and lets it clatter to the floor beside the bed. She reaches, blearily, for the half-empty bottle of mezcal and tips back another mouthful, before pulling the pillow over her head.

Sleep is merciful, taking her quickly as she waits, in quiet humiliation, for this day to be over.


	6. S Tiberius Prince

**Part VI**

"You are, what is it, kémikus, chemist?" Laszlo is looking over her shoulder, at the ball-and-stick models she's been scratching for half the morning. They don't help much with potions, but she likes to keep the important molecules straight in her head, when she is able to find their explication in the literature. She guesses at others, postulates composition based on preparation.

"Yes. Thank you so much." He's brought her another cup of coffee. She reaches for her handbag, but he forestalls her with a graceful little palms-out bow.

"The house will cover. You are here all the time. You are at university?"

She nods. It's a white lie, and safe enough.

"You will do well. Study, study, study. It's good."

She returns his smile. There's a little flicker of warmth in her core. It's the most conversation she's had with anyone in days. A week? Maybe more.

She's losing track of time. If the café didn't keep consistent hours, she doubts she would. She sleeps poorly, tossing and turning on the narrow bed, and when she wakes, it's to a detached fog that drifts around her like the morning miasma off the Thames. She's begun taking long walks near Westminster Bridge. Either the apparition or the exercise clears her mind. Sometimes.

She's not sure if it's the destruction of the note, or the destruction of her hypotheses, but she's begun to see them all as abstractions, now, and not terribly interesting. Although, if she's honest about it, there's still a little kernel of resentment, centered on those eight scarlet words. They were a toxin, leaching through her life. Ink-induced marital coagulopathy – little clots of self-absorbed nastiness, when she shut the door on Ronald in favour of scrambling to produce the next thing, and _the next one_ , and _the one after that_. A rat-race of productivity, but the joke's on the rat: the promise of cheese is a laugh the experimenters are having at the expense of the hapless creature. And while she was busy stifling any passion she might have taught herself to feel for this other person sharing her life, in favour of ardour for research alone, she'd been unknowingly hemorrhaging every other aspect of herself.

She considers therapy, but in the end, she buys a plant.

It's a species of _Dieffenbachia_. She's a bit leery of Central American introductions, after the mezcal, but she likes its leaves. Too, its foliage is full of calcium oxalate raphides, little intracellular needle-like crystals which, if chewed, will produce localized edema and thus temporary paralysis of the tongue, giving the plant its common name, dumb cane. Poisonous plants appeal to her, somehow. It lives on her windowsill, and she even remembers to water it.

She meets up with Harry, one grey afternoon. The coffee at Fortescue's is inferior to her usual, but Harry doesn't like side-along apparition, so they're limited to Diagon Alley. She thinks he just wants to chat, catch up, see how she's doing. (She'd like him to express some tiny bit of interest in her health or well-being.)

But he's on a mission: "I had a funny sort of owl, last week."

"A funny owl, or a funny letter?" She asks, with a quirk of a smile.

He's apparently not in a light-hearted mood, though. "Funny letter. Weird, y'know. It was someone asking after your address. Said he'd tried to owl you, but it didn't deliver. I checked later, with Ron, I mean, and he said there _was_ an owl for you, but he didn't take it." He peers at her closely, as if to gauge whether mentioning Ronald's name is going to produce some infuriated reaction.

She rolls her eyes. "I wonder why he wouldn't." She's picturing him beating at some poor post-owl with his Nimbus, and thinks the notion might not be far off the mark.

"Er, dunno." Maybe Harry's imagining something similar. "But it checks out, anyway, about there really being an owl. But I felt odd, y'know, having someone asking me. I guess they know we're friends, everyone knows that. So it stands to reason. Still."

"And?" It's pulling hen's teeth, getting Harry to come to the point. There are things that never change, which _ought_ to be reassuring.

"Well, I felt like it wasn't my place, handing out your address. Old reflexes, I suppose. Gin says I'm a raving paranoid, which turns out to be really useful at work, with one thing and another."

She smiles tightly, and gestures for him to continue.

"Right. Anyway. I owled him back with your mobile number, the one you gave us. I thought, if he's legitimate, he can figure out a telephone and call you for your address. That should be enough to forestall a random nutter, yeah? So I wanted to give you a heads-up. Just in case."

"Thanks, Harry." Thanks for making her correspondence more difficult. Ah well, she can see he's tried to be sensible and cautious, and all the other adjectives she once despaired of him ever attempting.

He witters on, nervously, about the children and their various accomplishments, for just a few more minutes. And then he's gone. She rests her chin in her palm, and watches him through the glass, as he recedes into the swirling snowflakes. It's not always going to be like this, is it?

On a whim, she trudges down to the Post, and sends a bland _Hello, how have you been?_ to Viktor. She doesn't really expect a response, and she doesn't really want one, except that she worries, sometimes, late at night, that she doesn't exist anymore. She'd like some independent corroboration of the reality of her continuing survival. Although maybe she was never real to begin with: Harry Potter's friend, Ronald Weasley's wife. No one at all, except in apposition to others.

When her mobile rings, a couple evenings later, it nearly startles her half to death. By which logic, she's alive after all. It's nice to have that sorted.

"Hello, Ms. Weasley?"

"Yes," she affirms, warily.

"Oh, ehm, apologies, I should be asking for Ms. Granger, now, shouldn't I? Slipped my mind, 'though I saw it on your latest, your, ehm, authorial reversion, I should say, but it did slip, gotten used to thinking of you as Ms. Weasley, don't you know. But I'll try my best to get it fixed upstairs, under my hat, I mean. This is Tibs, by the by. How _are_ you, my dear?" This cheerful bubble of social frivolity (no other word springs immediately to her mind) is delivered in the plummy-est of Received tones, despite its content or lack thereof. _Tibs?_

"Oh! Dr. Prince! I—I'm fine."

"Now, now. I thought I'd gotten you trained, we mustn't backslide into formality. Can't bear it. Worry my father's in the room when anyone asks for Dr. Prince."

"Cer-certainly. Tibs. Then you must of course call me 'Hermione'."

"I intend to do nothing but, save that it seemed a touch casual for the telephone. Wonderful devices, because it's a delight to speak to you. I _do_ so wish they'd get the international Floo sorted. No matter, I've found you now. I _did_ send an owl, but, ehm, it didn't quite manage to deliver my letter, it seems."

She flushes hot. How awful. Her _editor_ has run afoul of Ronald's idiocy. "I'm so sorry, I've changed address, and I didn't even think to include it in my submission."

"Oh, don't fret, there's no harm done. To tell you truth, in retrospect I am considerably pleased at the necessity of channeling this dialogue through, ehm, unconventional means."

"Beg pardon?"

"Well," there is brief lapse, with a peculiar _pucking_ sound – is he smoking a pipe? "In addition to contacting you at a truly unconscionable hour, for which my apologies—" It's later in Amsterdam, so what's he on about? "—I really think it's best I have this chat with you entirely _outside_ the office, as it were."

"Oh?"

"It's rather, ehm, not done, contacting an author outside the regular channels. But I am positively compelled, m'dear, _compelled_. You see, I've got your manuscript back across my desk right now, or earlier last week, I should say, and I confess that the third reviewer I solicited is just as inadequate to the task as the first two."

She sits back down, because she feels as though she's taken a blow to her solar plexus. _Three_ reviewers? _Inadequate_. "I'm so sorry."

"Oh, no, you mustn't misunderstand me." His voice is up an octave, and she can hear now that it cracks faintly at the edges. She involuntarily reshuffles her mental image, adding greyed hair to the pipe and dressing gown. "I am utterly convinced that you've got something rather brilliant here. But I am constrained, my dear, by the process. Despite my efforts, I've got three separate 'rejects', and there's just nothing I can do with it. The situation, I mean."

Well, it was a good thing she didn't treat herself to the torta she'd been eyeing up in the café. In better than a month, the only thing she's really accomplished is keeping a plant alive. A plant that hasn't even been here the entire time. But she is not going to whinge. Not to an editor. "Is there anything you can recommend, that might see it fit for resubmission?"

"Now that's precisely what I most wanted to discuss. It's…" he pauses, to puff at his pipe, and perhaps to find the word he wants, "Delicate. Yes. With your permission, I should like to send your manuscript on to an acquaintance of mine."

"Certainly; you don't need my permission for that."

"Oh, but I must have it. You see, this would be… ehm, _outside_ of the Guild, strictly speaking."

"Oh. So not to a Guild member?" That puts a different spin on things. Guild membership means playing by the rules; peer review and academic acceptance of one's work functions entirely within its constraints.

"Ehm, no. No, lapsed, quite some time ago. But I can certainly vouch for their discretion."

"Yes, of course. Sorry, I didn't mean to imply—"

"Oh heavens, no, m'dear. Not in the least! If I couldn't vouch for them personally, I'd never suggest such a thing. But I think your little paper will fall on fertile ground there, and some good ideas are apt to sprout up. Now, in consideration of, ehm, concerns you may have as to priority, I've gone to the liberty of drawing up a patent application on your behalf; I shall send that on to you directly. You take a look over, sign it, and pop it in the post. Easiest thing!"

She has the faintest sense she's being hustled into something, so, "May I have just a moment to consider this?"

"All the time you need." He sucks again at his pipe.

A patent's a good idea. That provides as much security as Guild membership; her idea can't be stolen without some pretty comprehensive legal repercussions. She wouldn't have thought you could patent something that hasn't got a process, yet, but Tibs clearly has the advantage over her. And if this fellow's not even a member, he's not going to snaffle her paper and publish it himself. Probably just someone on the applications side, able to commit the 'elbow grease' needed for a full study.

"This person? He's a brewer? Or an apothecary?" Although the latter's unlikely.

"None of those things, I'm afraid." He sighs. "Only someone with entirely too much time on their hands, and too little else to do. An apprentice of mine, who didn't take the field on in any professional capacity."

That's a bit disappointing. Still, if Tibs will vouch for them, there's nothing lost, is there? "Alright, then."

"Splendid! And your address? We'll get the patent on the books, first thing, so you needn't lose a wink over it."

She smirks wryly at the notion of sleeping well, and rattles off her address.

As he's beginning to make his polite farewell, she decides, on a whim, to plumb the depths of a little mystery: "Pardon, I expect this is a bit out of the blue—" she's fallen into idioms, something about his locution must be rubbing off, "—But I was wondering what originally brought my work to your attention?"

He chuckles, apparently delighted with the question, which is some relief. "Ah, my dear, I've an eye for talent. I keep a sharp lookout when it comes to new authors."

"Oh." His praise tickles her straight through, a giddy little buzz. She'll wager it all: "I wondered if it might not have been my coauthor. I thought perhaps you'd known him, Severus Snape, I mean."

"Ah. Well, yes. Actually." It sounds as though he's exhaled through his nose. "Sister's son. Bit of a disappointment, really, that he never accomplished much. Still, he managed to teach _you_ an appreciation for potions, before it was all over, eh?"

"Yes. He… he had a distinctive teaching style. I learned a lot." They say their goodbyes, and she sets her mobile back on the nightstand. The novel she'd been reading doesn't seem appealing anymore; she's curiously deflated in the aftermath of their conversation.

But she does fall asleep, and what's more, stays that way until morning. Perhaps something's ended; perhaps the toxins have finally been neutralized.


	7. No-fault

**Part VII**

An owl flutters up to her window the next afternoon. In her haste to accept the envelope it's clutching, she knocks her photosynthetic friend off the sill. She stares blankly at the mess for what must be minutes, and feels like a murderer. When she kneels to inspect the damage, it's not so bad, though, just one stem broken. Plants are totipotent, right? Every bit of their tissue has the potential to become stem cells, to grow whole new plants from destructive beginnings. She clips off the broken stem, stands it in a glass of water in the hopes it will poke out some roots, and sweeps what dirt she can back into the pot.

The envelope, as she'd guessed, is the patent application from Tibs. She reads it over, and it looks watertight, but since she already has an appointment with a Diagon Alley barrister to begin proceedings, she decides she'll take it along and get her hour's worth.

The plant agrees with her, when she voices this plan. She rewards its contribution by damping down its soil, and readjusting it a bit so that it's directly in the scant sunbeam. She continues to feel badly about the damage she has inflicted upon it.

Unfortunately, now there are two reasons to go over to the wizarding side, although she'd much rather continue reading about the cellulose-degrading enzymes produced by ruminant gut bacteria. (She has theories about what's going on when you add 'sheep's bile' to strengthen the effects of a particular stage in brewing a sleeping tonic. It's not bile, after all, but rather liquid strained from cud taken from a sheep's rumen.) She glances regretfully at the books spread out on her bed, and runs her hands up through her hair. Disaster as always, but what with salvaging the plant, she's run out of time to do anything with it.

She pulls a hat and coat on, trades the coat for a cloak at the last minute, and apparates off to the protective cluster of dustbins, a couple alleys up from the Leaky. The new anti-apparition wards around Diagon Alley are good security, she's sure, but it would be nice not to have to pass through Neville and Hannah's establishment. Too many people notice her. Including Molly Weasley.

"Hermione!" Her voice rings out and people turn to look, so there's no hope of escaping this confrontation.

"Molly, how are you?" Civil, distant, she can manage that.

"Oh, _I'm_ well enough. But my dear girl, you look as though you haven't been sleeping at all."

This tinge of concern is so unexpected that she almost stumbles, between one step and the next. "Burning the candle at both ends, a bit." She smiles helplessly, and scrambles to dissuade a chat. "I'm nearly running late, though."

Molly follows her back through the pub, and clutches at her arm as she's about to tap the access pattern on the bricks. Her fingers grip in a bit too tightly. "And where are you off to, then?" she asks, too much cheer injected into her voice.

"An appointment at Dawlings'."

"Dawlings' and Partners?" Molly doesn't miss a trick, and her eyes sharpen. "Listen, Hermione dear. It's fate we've run into each other. I don't think it's in anyone's best interests for you to go down _that_ path. Poor Ron's pining, I really think the two of you need to talk."

"He's welcome to. Anytime he likes."

"Dear, you're like a daughter to me, so please trust me when I tell you that I think it would go a lot further if you took the first step in this." Molly has yet to release her arm.

Somehow, anytime someone asks her to trust them, she is inclined to do the opposite. Perhaps Harry's not the only one who's a raving paranoid.

Molly must sense her hesitation. The woman's like some tenacious pit bull: "Well, but maybe just consider it. You know, there's no harm waiting a bit. Just two or three more weeks? You could be pregnant, after all."

"Er, no, no I'm not." Is this what she's been about? The abrupt entry of her uterus into the conversation startles her into the admission.

"Oh. Well that's a shame." Except Molly doesn't seem fussed. "But surely waiting just three weeks? I'll give Ron a talking to, and we'll get this sorted out."

Three weeks is an oddly specific timeframe. Oh. Saint Valentines' Day. Bugger. Maybe… maybe there's some hope of things turning out alright? Molly wouldn't be suggesting it otherwise, would she? She bites at her lip, and then essays her mother-in-law a tiny, genuine little smile. "It's… it's not actually what you were thinking. With Dawlings. I… I wanted them to look over a patent application."

"Oh!" Molly's relief is palpable. "Oh, I'm glad to hear that! So sorry to have jumped to conclusions, dear. Goodness, and you're running late. Off you go, perhaps we'll see you around to the Burrow soon."

Perhaps.

Whether warranted or not, it's with a lighter heart that she sets off into Diagon Alley. Even recognizing one of the Patil girls as the office's junior clerk doesn't faze her. She can't tell if this one is Padma, who would find both patents and divorce uninteresting on account of there being too little in the way of obscure legal precedents, or Parvati, whose reaction would be borderline schizophrenic – bored to tears and simultaneously slathering after a bite of gossip. Whichever one it is, she smiles, nods, and prepares to disclose as little as possible.

Within a few minutes, she's safely ensconced in a plush, oak-panelled room that smells, ever so faintly, of cigar smoke. Dawlings Sr. is seated behind a teak desk that's lavish with carvings. He shuffles some papers before addressing her. "Now then, Mrs. Weasley. What can we do for you?"

She is irritated, on principle, by people who refer to themselves in the plural, but perhaps he means the firm. "Two things. The first is a patent application; I understand your office deals in such things?"

"We don't draft them, if that's what you're asking."

"No, just to have a look over."

"May I?"

She passes the document across. He unfolds it, peers at it, and then unfolds a pair of reading glasses. The wasted time grates at her a bit, but at least he's a fairly quick reader. "Well, I can't follow the technical details, you understand. I can pass this along…"

"No, the technical details are fine. I'm just wondering about the legal protections this offers, whether it's appropriately drafted."

"It seems to be on the up-and-up. It's an international patent, although you might have difficulty enforcing it in America. Their congress is… well."

"That's not an immediate concern."

"Then I should say that this seems fine. Let me find you copies of our typical templates for this sort of thing." He rummages in the cabinet along the wall, and comes up with a folio, from which he plucks a few papers. "You may have these, of course. You'll see that your own patent accords well with our standard internationals. If your registry office - this is through the Alchemical Guild, I imagine? Yes, well, if they'll accept it, I see nothing that would otherwise cause concern."

"Thank you, I appreciate your time. And, er, the other thing, if I've still got a few minutes on the clock?" Better than thirty minutes, but who knows how lawyers reckon an hour?

He motions for her to go on.

"I might be seeking a divorce from my husband. I… erm, I haven't quite decided, yet, but…"

"Hmm. Well, it's not going to happen immediately, anyway. We wouldn't be able to register your proceedings before the Wizengamot for some time. Our queue of cases there is about four weeks at the moment; Blackwell's across the street is running thereabouts too, I believe. It always gets busy just before Christmas, corporate concerns of course, and then we're all of January digging ourselves out from under."

"So… there's nothing that can be done just now?"

"Well, yes. You may of course retain our firm for that purpose, and we'll certainly draft proceedings. But they won't be registered until the middle of next, at the earliest. You may always drop us a line, and the matter can be terminated if your situation changes." He gives her a hard look over the rim of his steel glasses.

She nods. This seems a reasonable way to proceed, and she says as much.

"Very good." He shuffles the papers on his desk again, jots a note, and stands. "Mrs. Weasley, we shall get started just as soon as we sort you out with billing; there's a retainer, naturally." When she doesn't flinch at this, he plucks at a bell-pull on the opposite side of the room. Within moments, the Patil girl, whoever she is, pokes her head in after a discreet knock. "Parvati, could you start a client file for Mrs. Weasley? Gringotts account on the billing line. Mrs. Weasley will give you her particulars once our meeting is finished."

She wonders how many details Parvati will be privy to, and decides to ask. He's working for her now, after all. "You understand, I'm not committed to this action yet. It would… go amiss if… well, if that particular delicacy weren't understood by your office."

He bristles faintly, and she twists her fingers together, down below the desk where he won't see it for the nervous gesture it is. "Until I register your proceedings with the Wizengamot, your file is going to stay locked in my cabinet. Mrs. Weasley."

She nods, as courteously as she knows how. "Thank you for your appreciation of my situation, Mr. Dawlings."

"Now then. In this purely hypothetical divorce, what are your demands?"

"Demands? Oh. No, nothing. Our incomes and annuities are separate. And there's nothing I particularly want in the way of shared possessions." She can't imagine trying to fit any of the furniture into her flat. And wedding gifts? She doesn't need a 24-place setting of china.

"And are you presently separated?"

Oh. So there's a technical term to describe her situation. Other people must do this, must survive this. "Yes. Since the middle of December."

"No children?"

"No."

"Very straight-forward, then?" His brow lowers at her, as if he suspects her of being an idiot, or holding out, because this is too uncomplicated. "No part in your husband's salary? I understand he's an Auror."

It's the first indication she's had that he knows exactly who she is. It actually sets her a bit at ease; she unclenches the muscles in her thighs. "No, no alimony." See, she's not a complete dunderhead, she knows some of the right words.

"Hmm." She senses he's disappointed by all this, but there's nothing she's willing to do about _that_. The easier this can be, the better. He jots a few more notes. "No-fault divorce, no further disposition of mutual property, you to have no claim upon his incomes or properties, and he to have no claim on your personal properties or incomes. That covers it, does it?"

"Yes." She's relieved. It all sounds very civilized.

She fills out paperwork for Parvati at the front desk, and declines her offer of an 'after-work tipple, just to catch up!' with a solemn agreement that they'll do so next time. She makes it to the Post just before closing, and mails her patent back to Amsterdam. She debates stopping in at the Leaky for dinner, but there's a chippy on the way home that will do just as well, and with significantly less potential for awkward social encounters. The day's well into gloaming when she lets herself back into her flat.

"Well, things are started," she tells Plant and Mini-plant. She decides she has high hopes for Mini-plant. It hasn't wilted yet; maybe with a little luck it will grow, thrive, flourish.

And so it does: within a week, there's a little nubbin of root tissue poking out of a submerged leaf axil. She cheers when she sees it, and decides this is a good omen. She'll send Ronald an owl, and perhaps they can actually _talk_ for once.

She spends a long time, penning her apology. She acknowledges she's been at fault, that she's invested too heavily in her research, at the expense of their marriage. She asks if he'd be willing to meet with her, maybe go for a walk together. Have a meal, or even just coffee. She scratches that out, realizes she's fouled the paper with editorial marks, and starts over. Have a meal, or even just get ice cream at Fortescue's. Better. She'd like for them to talk, to try to see if they can find some common ground. She does not say 'work things out'. She does not want to put undue pressure upon him, and the letter's already two paragraphs. He's not going to read it if it doesn't come to the point quickly. She carefully addresses it to 'Ron'.

Mini-plant loses one of its old leaves. In the days between her owl and his reply, it pokes out a new one, though, curled tight and cheerfully green. Ronald's missive is terse: _Maybe. I'll think about it._

Well, it's not 'no'.

She places his letter on the sill next to the plants, and packs up her day's supplies. She'll go straight on to the café, once she's taken her constitutional walk down by the Thames, even though it's late for it. She's slept in again, which she's been doing too often, and it's coming on noon. But the exercise gets her brain going, so she's loathe to skip it entirely. She pauses in the entry to collect her mail (bills, flyers, a heavy manila envelope which may be reprints or photocopies of Muggle articles she's written authors for), which she tucks atop her papers and notebooks. She'll find a pleasant bench, and sort through it in the fresh air. It's finally a day of proper sunshine, and she doesn't want to waste another moment of it.


	8. Today's Post

**Part VIII**

She apparates to the South Bank. It's risky, because there aren't many inconspicuous places to pop into, but the lunch crowds tend to be heavy, and she decides to chance it. She has always enjoyed people-watching along the Queen's Walk. She's coming up on the Eye, and thinking she'll have a sit before she finds somewhere to disapparate from, when a touristy Japanese couple approaches her. They beg, all bright smiles and apologies, for her to snap some photographs for them. They pose together, beneath the giant wheel, and she wonders if they're on honeymoon. Despite their winter coats, there's barely any space between their bodies as they cling to each other in a display of mutual adoration. She'd never clung to Ronald, but then, he'd never clung to her.

She passes them back their camera with a smile, and an unspoken wish that they have good luck of each other.

There's an unoccupied bench beneath one of the barren plane trees. It's a nice view of Parliament across the river, and she pushes her little bout of negativity away. It's just oxytocin, that couple. Of course she didn't feel that flood of happy neurochemicals; she was too busy recovering from torture and war and sundry self-inflicted damages. …quelling negative thoughts is clearly working out well.

The post. She'll do that, and then head off to the café.

There's nothing terribly interesting. She folds the utility invoices up, and tucks them away for safekeeping. Soon there's just the manila envelope left. She hopes it's some of the papers identifying rumen protists and fungi – it's possible, if they don't produce any harmful toxins, that pure cultures might be useful.

There's no return address to worry about saving, but she slits the envelope open carefully anyway through habit. The first thing that's clear is that it's not reprints.

It's just sheaves of paper, varying sizes, varying ages, ripped from some green-ruled notebook. She flips the wad over, and sees that there's a cover letter, of sorts. In neat, plain type, she reads:

 _Ms. Granger,_

 _A busybody of our mutual acquaintance has sent your manuscript. The enclosed documents may be of some interest to you. As you will no doubt recognize the hand, and Dr. Prince declines to function as an intermediary in this matter, you might as well direct your inevitable inquiries to the following number:_

She glares at the page in confusion. This? This is the contribution Tibs' failed apprentice is offering? It's barely a letter, and certainly no introduction. She flips the page over, and glances across the scribbled notes beneath it.

 _Does_ she recognize the hand that wrote these words?

Instantly.

Every hurried scratch, every short-handed word, every angle, every loop – they have counterparts in her library, decorating book margins, flowing across lab manuals, constantly dripping their sarcasm and wit into her life.

She swallows hard, and firmly tells herself that there is a perfectly logical explanation behind this. Her correspondent must have had access to Snape's office during his tenure as Headmaster. These pages are clearly torn from his lab notebooks – she has some of his earlier ones, from Spinner's End, but the last several years are missing. There's nowhere else they could have been.

Draco Malfoy. It's got to be him, no one else would've dared ransack Snape's office. And didn't she hear that he studied alchemy, briefly? He's in finance now, she's seen his smug, pointed face around Gringotts on occasion. She growls wordless fury, when she thinks of the wanton destruction he's practised on these volumes, just ripping out whatever pages he thought might be useful. Entitled little shit. And that remark about Tibs – she reads it again: 'declines to function as an intermediary' – that's got a Malfoy feel to it. Wanting her to keep her Muddy blood a long way from himself.

She sighs.

Although maybe she's getting ahead of herself. There's a telephone number. Malfoy wouldn't have a telephone, would he? Who else might have Snape's things, _and be on the Muggle side_? She tries to remember if Tibs mentioned any details about this person. Did he even give a gender, or did she assume?

Well, and why is she faffing about? She's got a telephone number, she'll just call and get her answers, and then she'll know. No guesswork or theorizing required. She digs out her mobile.

Her fingers tremble, just a little, as she types in the number and presses 'Dial'.


	9. Fifteen Minutes

**Part IX  
**

"Arse-dagger, kindly state your business or you can fuck right off." The voice is male, young, drawling, and what the bloody hell?

"I… I think I may have the wrong number. This is –?" She reads it off.

"Yesssh, precioussssss. Who're you looking for?"

Oh hell. She knows she'll sound like an idiot, but now she's determined to get to the bottom of this, so: "I received a packet in the post today. It's documents, and a letter to call this number."

"Righto, hang on." Then, muffled shouting: "Anyone send someone a bunch of papers?" He uncovers the receiver and asks, "What's your name, girlfriend?"

"Granger."

He shouts again, "Oi, got a call here from some bird named Granger. Any takers? Going once… here we are, lovey, got your culprit, just a tick."

She waits. Her hands are unaccountably sweaty. Endless seconds pass, before she hears a faint growl of 'Give me that, you tosser'. She can't deduce a thing from it.

"Damnations. _Would you bugger off?_ Not you, Granger. Sorry. I don't know what possessed me to give you this number instead of my mobile." The voice is so instantly familiar she feels like she's been hit by a lorry.

He's alive. She can't breathe. The sodding bastard's _alive_ and he didn't tell her.

"Hello? Damn it all, bloody telephones, hello?"

"Yes." It's the last of her air.

"Have you got a pen handy? If I could give you another number?"

The scramble to find something to write with, and on, takes valuable instants, despite the fact she's got all her research materials in the bag at her feet. But she's started breathing again, just barely. "Yes, go ahead." She writes the numbers down in a daze.

"Just give me, oh, fifteen, say. I'm in the midst of something just now."

"Of course." There's numbness creeping over her with every one of his blithely inconsequential words. Vital words. Living words, inanities uttered all unconscious of time of loss ofhollowdarknesslonely death

"Alright, 'til then." She senses he's about to hang up, and terror floods through her, but he's not quite finished which is water and she's so parched, a morsel and she's been starving, air in a dark void pressing close. "Please… please do call." The words are hesitant, uncharacteristically quiet, and she thinks she's misheard, and she tries to ask, but the line is dead, and he's gone again, and she's so afraid it's forever that she stares fixedly at her wristwatch, desperately observing its hands tick down the minutes.

Thirteen. Inauspicious. She flexes her fingers. They're cold, and she tucks them under her armpits, but then she can't see her watch, and what if this is some bizarre magic – she believes in magic, because of course she has to, doesn't she? – that will only work if she meets every requirement of the spell?

Ten. A gaggle of tourists presses down the pavement, voices loud and cacophonous. How will she hear him? Her eyes dart wildly; where can she escape to? Panic or stomach acid or maybe the two are synonymous roils up. She snatches up her bag, ducks into the crowd. Weaves, twists, vanishes.

Risky, but she's home safe, although her stomach has won the battle and she's heaving into the toilet and

Six. She blows her nose, wincing at the sharp sting of vomit that's blatantly ignored her soft palate. Blowing was the wrong choice. She inhales sharply, spits. Flushes. Wipes her face on a clean flannel. Well, she hopes it's clean.

Tap water, gargle, spit. Three. She wants a toothbrush, but knows better. Motherly advice from before the Hogwarts letter: "Run, or count calories, but heavens don't ever vomit, it will ruin your teeth. And give you chipmunk cheeks, love, which you simply can't afford, what with those unfortunate incisors. At the very least don't brush afterwards, it does more damage than good."

Two. And she's been wasting brain-space on _this_ , when she should be trying to come up with something intelligent to say. But her words have been left behind somewhere, abandoned, forgotten. She must not have packed them up with her, when she fled the Queen's Walk.

Damp, shaking fingers – someone else's, because she's quite sure she hasn't asked this of her own – unfold the scrap of paper and punch numbers into the mobile's keypad. One.

"Ms. Granger." A soft purr in her ear, followed by a dark little huff, just the barest hint of a laugh. And then, all deprecating wryness, "I didn't really expect you to call."

"I—I'm sorry." Cold, pressing in on her, heavy and smothering. She's failed again; she's accustomed to it, she's fallible, but lord, why now, why when it finally matters?

"Oh, I'm tolerably pleased that you have. I just, rather. Well."

There is a long silence, and her brain refuses to fill it with anything useful. Anything other than the obvious: You're alive. And you didn't tell me.

But he has now. Why?

"I haven't got a script for this, alas." He sighs. "And mobiles are awkward as all hell. You are still there, aren't you?"

"Yes. And so are you." Speaking above a whisper is an anticipation of hurt: she's so afraid of saying something that will dispel this voice, this thin tendril of sound that encompasses her, that soothes an empty ache deep in her sternum.

"I am. Yes. Still here. I… I expect I owe you apologies. That's… Ms. Granger, you should know that's a positive novelty in my existence. Being able to apologize to someone I've wronged, I mean. Or, well, someone I've wronged that I've _wanted_ to apologize to. A meaningful distinction there."

Wronged? Has he? _Wronged_ implies some deliberate hurt, a dereliction of duty, a willful act of malice. She has long understood that it is only in her own imaginings that he had any obligation towards her. It is Lily for whom he was obliged to live, for Harry obliged to die. "What do you feel the need to apologize for?" She has managed a full sentence. This is called progress.

"Harm. That which I've done, and that which I shall surely continue to perpetrate, because I am that sort of fool. Would you be averse to meeting with me?"

There's a feeling like a queer hiccup in her chest, a little lurch. "I'd like that." The words escape her as a gentle sigh, too calm and detached for the chaotic jumble of emotions that is tightening her throat. Who is this foreign entity that has taken control of her lips, her voice, her fingers which unhesitatingly scribe the address he gives her? And who is he, this stranger who commands such actions of her?

"Just knock; I'll be about, or someone will know where I am." Such simple instructions. Too simple by far to bridge a gap of years, life: lived, or at least survived.

"I'll come today. If you want." But what does _she_ want?

"That would be fine." He doesn't bid her farewell, merely disconnects. This is a pattern for him, perhaps.

She slowly sets the mobile down upon the grimy tile, and lets her head sink onto her knees. The acrid scent of puke is still clinging in her nose. She should open the window, air it out, find some clean clothing. Eat something, because she can't remember when she did, last, and maybe her brain will start working again if she feeds it.

One thing at a time. One foot in front of the other. Make a list, cross off the bullets.

\- She strips out of her clothing, unceremoniously dumping it into a pile with the rest of the laundry she ought to have done a week ago. Or more.

\- At least there's one clean pair of denims left in her trunk. They were from her school days, and ought to be embarrassingly tight, but she's lost weight, despite the marzipans.

\- There's a choice between cashmere that she never wears because it has to be dry-cleaned, or a knobbly pink Weasley sweater. So it's no choice, really. Besides, she's fairly certain there aren't any style guides for what to wear when you meet a dead man.

\- She scoops Plant and Mini-plant off the sill. She'd hate for a gust to dash either of them down onto the pavement. They're only just recovering from their last trauma. "Am I insane?" she asks them. Since she doesn't hear a response, she is left to surmise that her faculties, though undoubtedly shaken, are probably intact.

\- She gargles with rinse, and then brushes her teeth anyway, because to hell with it: Dental charms exist.

\- She bolts a bread heel with the tail end of a cup of cold tea – did she make it yesterday? Or this morning, before she opened Ronald's note?

Ronald. Fuck. And just what the bloody hell does she think she's doing? (Does it even matter what she thinks? _If_ she thinks?)

One thing at a time. One foot in front of the other.

She survived a war this way.

She survived a marriage this way.

She will survive herself this way.

She will survive Snape.


	10. Point Me

**Part X  
**

The cheery sunshine has been occluded by a bank of low clouds that threaten an evening drizzle. The gray light does nothing to improve upon her memories of Hackney Wick Station:

Hermione Granger, nearly fifteen, is standing with her father on the Station's pedestrian bridge. She is wearing bright new trainers, which she plans to utterly ruin later in the summer, tramping around with the Weasleys. Even now, she's scuffing them up a bit on the concrete, when her father isn't looking. Which is a lot of the time. He's engrossed in photographing the Overground station and its environs from as many angles as possible. Hermione is glad that she can't see the River Lea from this particular vantage, although she has no doubt it's on their agenda.

Her father entertains intense but transient hobbies. There have been fairly ordinary adventures, like scrambles along cliffs at Lyme Regis – ordinary except that they went laden with textbooks and hand lenses to aide in classifying their finds, which now sit collecting dust in storage, assuming they haven't already been thrown out or given away. And there is nothing terribly unusual about stargazing, save that after a few sleepless months of sky mapping, her father's telescope sat abandoned until she 'borrowed' it for a spot or two of Time-Turner-assisted extracurricular Astronomy. Collecting beetles, on the other hand, went to some frantic extreme and was only dislodged by her letter, which precipitated an earnest investigation of 'magical' Britain.

Their sharing of these pursuits has been in decline since she started school, but she still tags along after him in the summers. Last year, they spent weeks poking about Parisian sewers and catacombs while her mother ate cheese, drank wine, and caught up on her reading. Hermione can now sex a human pelvis with the best of them, can identify osteological markers for a dozen different disease processes, and has a sneaking, macabre desire to revisit Errancis Cemetery, in order to try out a necromantic draught for inducing visions of the dead - she saw it when flipping through Moste Potente Potions, but was too much a chicken to seriously consider it. She'd had an unfortunate experience with Polyjuice writ rather large and fresh in her mind.

This year, the summer agenda has been curtailed by the Weasleys' invitation for her to join them for the Cup, so instead of Viking settlements, she and her father are touring London, hot on the cold, gruesome trail of a pair of serial killers. Already today they've done Hampstead Heath and Hendon, where Mulcahy and Duffy, equipped with what they dubbed a 'rape kit', began assaulting women in '82.

By the end of December, '85, the serial rapists have gotten bolder, and progressed to Hackney Wick Station, where they stalk after a nineteen-year-old girl who is planning to meet up with her fiancée. She is strangled with ligature and tourniquet, after being repeatedly violated. Mulcahy and Duffy weigh her body down with granite cobbles, and dump her in the Lea. Her father would have gladly imparted these details in his bland, indifferent tone, if Hermione hadn't already apprised herself of them in self-defence against lectures. In retrospect, she rather wishes she hadn't. Facts conveyed like case notes don't lodge inside your brain, don't twist up your heart.

The glitter of the Dark Mark will sear itself onto her retinas in the riotous aftermath of the Cup, but it's not Mrs. Roberts in her nightdress that she'll be thinking of, when Arthur decries the practise of 'Muggle-baiting'. Instead, her mind will conjure again the waterlogged remains of Alison Day. The juxtaposition of the two incidents will jolt her out of panic and into detached analysis.

The world contains things worse than Death Eaters.

Everyone else comes to view Professor Snape with revulsion, and Ronald, perversely, will spend the better half of Fifth Year trying to catch a glimpse of his Mark. Hermione? For Hermione, this is just another puzzle piece, a detail to file away. She's curious, but not horrified. Besides, she has seen things that no one else has: scrawls of red ink that lead her into strange and beautiful places, that illuminate wonders, that teach her how to think.

It takes Bellatrix Lestrange and a round of _Crucio_ to make her realize fully just how desensitized she is to genuine danger within her world. Whether this is the result of a summer of crime walks with her father, or simply the most logical outcome of a Hogwarts education, Hermione suspects her threshold for terror and violence is higher than average.

And yet Hackney Wick station still unsettles her. Perhaps there's another place she can apparate into, should she ever come this way again. The Olympic park, maybe. She debates taking the time for a detour, in order to fix its details in her memory. In the end, though, she doesn't want to be tramping through this ward after dark, searching out the address he's given her. She glances again at the numbers, then nervously refolds the paper into her pocket. She rolls her shoulders, palms her wand, and tells herself she isn't the least bit oppressed by the savagely colourful graffiti that looms on either side the streets.

The further she walks, the more this seems a decided step down from Cokeworth. And _that_ was plenty dire. She gets turned around a few times, and her second glimpse of the Lea is two too many. Enough is enough: She ducks into the shadow of abandoned construction works, and whispers, " _Point_ _me_ ". It might have been just as simple to ask a local, but if she hasn't already made a mark of herself, she isn't about to tempt fate.

She breathes easier when her wand eventually leads her into terraces, but this relief is premature and short-lived. A few more twisting blocks and she's surrounded once more by broken industrial carapaces. The graffiti is, if anything, more egregious here, and more ferocious. She edges around a corner warehouse emblazoned with ' _BOURGEOIS CUNTS',_ in puffy letters five feet high. Youths with leather jackets and too many piercings are variously lounging in front of the building, drinking coffee at construction spools that have been repurposed to tables and chairs. She is intensely cognizant of the fact that she does not blend in around here (is _she_ a 'bourgeois cunt'?), and wonders if she ought not to have cast a disillusionment charm.

Her wand has been growing warmer in her hand, she's getting close now. The tone of the place hasn't markedly improved, although there are occasional warehouses that appear under renovation of some sort. She glances up at the scaffolding looming above her, and thinks that a wrecking ball would not be amiss in this place. She pulls the scrap of paper from her pocket, and checks the address against the buildings.

How she failed to spot it immediately is a minor mystery – the building that matches the address is almost defiant in its lack of graffiti, clean windows in neatly painted doors and frames, and a series of tidy dustbins, each emblazoned with a triangular 'recycle' motif and some curt designation: plastics, metal, paper, waste. The notion of Snape lecturing about the necessity of sorting rubbish, in full-professorial mode, pops into her head. Well, it _is_ a bit reminiscent of the disposal bins at the back of the potions dungeon (Acids, bases, organics, wet waste, dry waste…). She clamps back a giggle, tucks her wand back in her coat sleeve, and approaches a set of low concrete steps beneath what appears to be the entrance. Passing one of the garage-style doors, she notes that there is a discreet logo across one of its windowpanes. It's simple: three offset hexagons, and the letters ' _HIVE_ '. As she's contemplating what this could mean, the door at the top of the stairs opens.

The figure it emits is a study in loud. The tight pink denims throw her off initially, but a second glance confirms that he's a he, despite artistically swooped shock-blond hair, heavy eyeliner, and a silk poet's shirt casually cinched in at the waist with a rhinestone belt. Whoever this is, it isn't Snape. She checks her address again. No, this is it.

This bloke—this poofter?—doesn't seem to have noticed her. He's expertly cracking the top on a beer bottle, and scanning the building across the way, where workers have begun to pack up for the day. They look up when Poncey favours them with a piercing wolf-whistle. "Lookin' fiiiiiine, lads," he calls across.

"Fuck you, you nancy-boy," one of them responds.

"Oh, you'd like to, sweet thing, I know you would!" He takes a swig of his beer, and finally notices her. "Why, helloooooo, precious. Are you lost?"

"I don't _think_ so," she says, wondering if it's still the truth. "I'm looking for a Mr. Snape."

" _Yes, Studley, yes! Work those biceps, baby_! Yeah, girlfriend, you're in the right place. He's around side, usually," He jerks a thumb towards the opposite end of the warehouse, "But today's your lucky day, he's gracing us lowly mortals with his magnificent presence." She recognizes his drawl now, it's the fellow from earlier, on the phone.

"I'll take you through once the floor show's done for the evening. _Get'em while they're hot, these boys won't be back 'til eight tomorrow!_ " He returns fingers to lips and whistles again when one the workers bends to lift a crate into their lorry. He laughs with abandon, as they raise fists and middle fingers. "This never fucking gets old. _Yeah, Charlie, you know you want some of this!_ " He sashays and slaps suggestively at his arse.

"You're not helping your cause, Val." This dry observation comes from a petite urchin with too much dark makeup and choppy, uneven red hair, who is closing the door behind herself. When she speaks again, Hermione sees a glint of metal past her lips; a tongue stud, evidently. "And who's this?" She indicates Hermione with a jerky tilt of her head.

"No idea. She's on the prowl for our adult. As to causes, I have no causes. Causes are for philanthropists." Poncey (or 'Val', maybe?) says it in a way that makes Hermione suspect it's a salvo in an ongoing debate, but Urchin ignores him, in favour of surveying Hermione through narrowed eyes.

"You're not from Council, are you?"

"Ohgodohgodohgod, _please_ tell me you're from Council." Val grips at the railing and swoons dramatically. Despite these antics, he's suddenly interested in Hermione; his eyes are sharp and searching.

"Sorry to disappoint." She is beginning to think she wants no part of whatever's going on here. "I'm only looking for Mr. Snape. He told me to look him up here."

Urchin raises a thin eyebrow, but shrugs philosophically. "You might as well come in, then. Val, if you're done pestering the local wildlife, you could shift your arse and find that battery pack for me. I can't very well shoot footage if I haven't got a camera working."

"Why not, you could be all artsy and avant-garde." He emphasizes the words mockingly. "Capture everything with a dead camera, and call it _Ephemera of Gender-War Subversions, Dialectics of Postcolonial Female Identities._ " He scribes wide air-quotes, the blousey sleeves of his shirt flapping merrily.

Urchin rolls her eyes. "It's no wonder you haven't got any friends. Are you coming?" This last is directed at Hermione.

"I haven't got any friends because you lot can't handle my dazzling good looks, nor the fact I actually _get paid_. And that I _like it that way_ ," Val sneers at Urchin, who treats them to another view of the whites of her eyes.

As she follows Urchin through the door, Hermione realises that the warehouse's starchy exterior is a grand deception. 'Controlled chaos' only begins to describe the incomprehensible riot that meets her eyes. Dangling above them are beams and struts festooned with wiring and lights; she has to physically step over roadwork and construction signage that appears to have fallen out of a heap; there's a nude woman reclining on a battered sofa and clutching a bowl of fruit – oh, and a pair of legs behind an easel, so maybe that explains _that_ ; a suit of costume armor has been posed beside the door – it's draped in a lime-green feather boa and someone's coat; there are computer screens literally _everywhere_ , and televisions, and privacy screens made out of canvas and movie pinups; here's a retaining wall composed of gallon paint tins – and what's it retaining? A bloody _train track._ And a horde of chickenwire frames, which appear destined to be covered in papier mâché, if the completed ones are anything to go by – wait, is that one a giant _vulva_? It has to be – she watches in horrified fascination as an Indian girl, gesticulating wildly in some argument she can't hear over the generalized din, adjusts some of the …pubic wires? and they light up, casting scintillating pulses of light across the sculpture. Light emitting diodes, her brain helpfully supplies.

She tries to shake her head clear, but it's no use: turning away from one spectacle only presents another. Here's a Middle Eastern fellow gently lifting small skulls out of a tank swarming with beetles. He passes them across to a gangly, owlish woman in a stained labcoat; she grins wide, teeth blinding white against her dark skin. "My pretties!" She crows, and air-kisses in the vicinity of the skulls.

"What is this place?" Hermione asks, faintly. Urchin's response is drowned out by the sudden crackling whine of a welding arc. The shower of sparks is alarmingly near, spraying up from behind a row of freestanding shelves. Hermione edges forward – away from the door, yes, but also away from the unseen welder. The sound dies away, and Urchin is about to repeat herself, when half the floorspace is abruptly plunged into darkness.

"It is not me!" A cheerful, accented yell (Slavic, maybe) from behind the shelves. The welder, as if to prove his innocence, begins again, and the acrid smell of burning, molten metal makes Hermione sneeze.

The lights come back on. Urchin is grinning wide, with an alarming glee sparking in her green eyes. "This place? This place is The Hive. Welcome."


	11. The Hive

**Part XI**

Urchin's welcome isn't an answer, actually. "The Hive? And what, pray tell, is The Hive?"

"It's not The Hive." Val has snuck up behind them, and she startles at his pouty addition to their conversation. "It's Arse-Dagger Enterprises. I say so, and since I'm the one who paid the rent for the past five months, since I'm the only one around here who's so _crass_ and _commercial_ , and such a _sell-out_ , it's bloody well whatever I say it is."

Urchin sighs. "It's The Hive. We took a vote."

"Fuck you and your social-collectivist democracy."

The woman in the labcoat has set aside her 'pretties' and come up to hear the conversation. She's frowning at Val's latest. "Democracy is not, contra your naive presumption or ill-intentioned inflammatory statement, a socialist construct. Yes, the worker's revolution is ideally carried out in a democratic paradigm, in that ownership of the means of production can be peacefully transferred to the workers through modification of existing—"

"Booooor-iiiiing. Arse-Dagger Enterprises. I pay the rent. I am the Evil Capitalist Overlord, paying the rent to the Evil-er Capitalist Over-overlord. And besides, you asshats make me answer the phone. So Arse-Dagger it is, and if you don't like it, get a job."

"It is Hive, Valentine. You are outnumbered. That is not democracy, that is logistics of battlefield. We should get pizza tonight, yes?" the Slav has emerged from behind the shelving; he pulls up his safety visor to reveal a pleasant, open expression framed in sweaty curls.

"Veg with feta, hold olives. The Hive," Urchin turns back to Hermione, "is a collective workspace. We're post-capitalist, or some of us think we are."

"Properly speaking, we are Makers," Labcoat stresses the word as a proper noun. "We exist in an autonomous post-capitalistic economy of skill-bartering, to the extent that we can maintain niche industry and—"

"And some of us do art," Urchin interjects. "It's a collective. Of weird and wonderful, wretched and wry. The whole gamut of human experiences, in microcosm."

"Well, I think that might be a touch grandiose, Maddie." Ah, so Urchin has a name.

"True art is supposed to be grandiose. Ergo the artist is grandiose, if we do what we are. Or we are what we do. And it wasn't grandiose, so much as poetic."

"No, I think 'grandiose' sums it. For my part, I should prefer to be taken as serious, lest I run the risk of being mistaken for, well, for Val." Labcoat lowers her voice a touch, but Val and the Slav are bowed over a takeaway menu.

" _Dry_ is not the same as serious. And successful art isn't sober, it's provocative. The _purpose_ of art is provocation." Urchin – Maddie – is apparently warming up to a favourite subject.

Labcoat's lips are pressed firm, and her next words are terse: "There are myriad kinds of provocation. Just because my work is not flashy, and does not play on civil outrage, does not diminish its impact. _Provocative_ need not be classless and offensive; art does not need to engage tropes and popular culture to succeed. Warhol did that already; so did Banksy. If it's not different, it's derivative. As for ' _dry_ ', look, come here, you." She grasps Hermione's arm, and her fingers are like clamps.

She has two choices: come, or be dragged. Labcoat pulls her past the tank of beetles; they are swarming over decaying carcasses, rats mostly. Behind the tank, there's a workbench with precision lighting. Skulls are arranged according to size or species, and someone has been drawing branching diagrams across them in ink. Labcoat lifts a glass teardrop, inside of which is a skull, nestled among Irish moss, and some strange, greyish plant that pokes up out of the hole near the apex of the glass. "This is one of the pieces. The exhibit I'm working on is _Jardin Memento Mori_. These little gardens," She gestures back towards the large window, where dozens more are hanging, "will be suspended at intervals throughout the space."

"Alright," Hermione says, because she intuits that she should say _something_.

"These are not the entire point, of course. They're the aesthetics." Labcoat continues to pull her along, to a bank of computer screens and sundry electronics. "Look at these, do you know what they are?" She brandishes pieces of cardstock with little rectangles cut out of them in regular intervals. "They're FORTRAN punch cards."

Hermione has begun to feel that she is superfluous; Labcoat could talk to a coatrack just as easily.

"Punch cards were used in the early days of computing. The interval at which lines are punched are read as commands by the computer. What I've done is _evoke_ that aesthetic, as a kind of tech-nostalgia. Each of these cards actually represents a genetic barcoding region. These, here, are the base pairs from 16S _r_ RNA – it's a mitochondrial region that we can use to distinguish vertebrates from one another. It's not perfect, because it's a short region, only about 250 base pairs. But I can only fit so much on a punch card. Plants, for instance, it's pretty standard to use both _mat_ K and _rbc_ L together as barcodes. They're chloroplast genes, and you get upwards of 75% species discrimination that way. But depending on the plant, that's easily 2,000 base pairs, and that's outside the parameters of what my system can cope with. So I've copped out a bit, and done the plants with _rbc_ L alone: 450, 500ish. It is, after all, just a physical metaphor."

Hermione's brain has switched off, but she makes a valiant effort, nonetheless. The faster Labcoat is finished with her as a captive audience, the faster she can find herself relinquished, find Snape, and flee. "So the cards each represent identifying bits of DNA, one card per species?"

"Yes, exactly!" Labcoat beams. "Each card in the exhibit is a physical object that the audience interacts with. They'll be positioned in trays, throughout the space. The patrons can lift the card out of the tray, and physically carry it to the reader. Although, it's not an actual card-reading system. What I've done is highlight each SNP," she pronounces it 'snip', "Each single nucleotide polymorphism, the individual base pairs that differ between species – each one has been painted with a fluorescent dye. When you bring the card to the reader, the SNPs epifluoresce, and _that's_ what the system actually reads. The neat bit is, the patron can _see_ all the SNPs while this is happening. This creates agency, it makes the patron an active participant in the exhibit. And that's important, vital."

Labcoat has been positioning the card inside of a machine, and Hermione can see, yes, that the margins of some of the punched holes are glowing.

"Look here," Labcoat commands, pointing to the screen. "Once the program reads the card, it uses the sequence of SNP reads to call the video file for the species." A tiger's tail twitches from amidst gently blowing grasses; the camera pans and the beast springs into view. Words coalesce atop this image: _Panthera tigris tigris. Endangered, IUCN Red List. Fewer than 2,500 individuals remain in the wild._

"Think of it, imagine yourself there. The room is empty, echoing, with just the orb-gardens and their skulls, dangling at eye-level. You, and a dozen other patrons, walk amidst them, accessing the vital statistics of a world in decline." Labcoat's voice has sunk low and gentle. "Every one of these cards is a species that is endangered or extinct. All of these living things, reduced to punched paper and electrons. From the Garden of Eden, to Le Jardin Memento Mori. You can't tell me that's not provocative," she finishes softly.

"Sure, whatever floats your boat." Maddie's tone is dismissive. Hermione hadn't realised that she'd come along. The two are obviously engaged in some disagreement that stretches beyond the confines of the workspace. Labcoat is bristling up again, but before she can say anything, Maddie claims Hermione's arm. "Look, Cathy, the lady didn't come for a lecture, she's only looking for the landlord. C'mon, Snape's back by my space. You get the full tour today, unfortunately. But I guarantee that at least my stuff is visually interesting."

With this Parthian shot, Maddie hustles her out of the _Jardin_ , and back into the generalized chaos. The pubic wires on the giant vulva are still glowing; they pass beyond the monstrosity, and into a scene that is visually _something_ , alright.

There's a theatre set mocked up in miniature. Red velvet curtains frame a stage, upon which are situated: a large crocheted doily upon which someone has painted a clenched fist inside of the symbol for Venus; a miniature plush divan; and a lady's vanity, complete with teensy bottles of perfume and little palettes that presumably represent makeup. Loops of tiny pearls and bijoux spill out of small glass dishes, and doll-sized shoes poke out from beneath the divan. The backdrop to this set is a dizzying collage of Harlequin Romance bookcovers, all featuring the same chiselled male. The words 'Fabio Forever!' blink in a tiny theatre marquee. Sat amidst all of this miniscule opulence is a beaver.

It's clearly stuffed, but that only enhances the macabre effect of its red-painted rodent lips, the heavy false eyelashes above its equally false eyeballs, and the crimson enamelled nails on its tiny paws, which are clutching Naomi Wolf's _The Beauty Myth_. To complete the horror, it has been fitted with a tiny bra and knickers set, which glitter with sequined hearts. She is torn between revulsion and laughter – it is both hideous, and hilarious.

Denizens of The Hive are milling about, adjusting cameras and spotlights. This is, apparently, a set in the literal sense. "Maddie, did you find that battery pack?" Someone is trying to get her guide's attention. Another: "I'm not sure, but I think maybe we should put charges under the platform, too, because we're only going to get one shot at this." "Maddie, do we really need that area, Gwen's space, to be completely clear, or can we cover? It'll be dark anyway." "When are we starting? Do I have time to use the loo?"

Maddie makes a calming palms-down gesture with both hands. "We can't start until the alarms and sprinklers are disabled. Do we know where we're at with that? Kevin?"

Kevin must be the whipcord swot with the intense stare. He's ogling Maddie as if she's a goddess or the last chocolate in a box; Hermione can almost see him panting. "Uh, hang on, I'll see." He darts away, and Hermione watches as he skids to a halt near a hole in one of the plasterboard panels that line the nearest wall. He addresses a pair of legs and buttocks that are leaning into said hole: "Mr. Snape? Sorry, Maddie O'Shea wants to know how the sprinklers are coming?"

The legs and buttocks straighten up, and emerge from the wall, followed by a torso, followed by Severus Snape's face. His Led Zeppelin t-shirt is grimed up with plaster dust, and he has charcoal and plaster on his face, and in his hair. "Maddie O'Shea wants to know?" He repeats, sneering. "Maddie O'Shea should be thankful I'm even here, and not calling the Met to file an arson report."

"Maddie O'Shea is properly grateful," says Maddie O'Shea, sighing. "But she thinks that if you'd just made the wiring accessible, you wouldn't have had to go to half the trouble."

"And if I had made the wiring accessible, you and your ilk would have disabled the fire alarms years ago, and we'd all have been blown to bits when your inevitable meth lab exploded."

"Inevitable? And a meth lab, yet."

"Well, I thought the obvious remark about your being Irish was probably tasteless."

"Thanks. Git."

One of Maddie's compatriots pokes his head up from behind the set. "Hey now, _I'm_ the one setting the charges, why is she getting the credit?"

"Because, Brian, I'm the lead artist, it was my _concept_. You're technical assistance." Maddie shakes back her hair, and Snape, perhaps unconsciously, mirrors her motion. Some of the plaster chips dislodge. Hermione realises she has been staring, quite as fixedly as the hapless Kevin, and looks away.

"Yeah, well, I'd like to see you accomplish your grand artistic gestures without my pyro know-how." Brian huffs, as he picks up miscellaneous tools. The word 'pyro' clicks in Hermione's head. Charges. Arson. Are they really blowing things up?

"So are we good to detonate?" Maddie asks Snape, with a bright, cheerful smile. "Oh, and you've got company, by the by." She gestures over her shoulder, in Hermione's general direction. Snape's eyes widen, momentarily, and he begins and aborts a gesture to brush away more of the dust – if she hadn't been looking, she'd have missed the play, because in the next instant his face is an expressionless mask. He nods at her, once, and turns back to Maddie.

"You are entirely welcome to detonate your beaver or whatever other asinine thing you so ardently desire to do. Mind you, if Townes doesn't rewire the alarms, I swear I'm throwing the lot of you out of here, first thing tomorrow."

"The lot of them, you mean." Val has sauntered up. "I, of course, am a legal tenant. With rights, and everything. Out of curiosity, who's this skirt, and why's she here?"

A dozen pairs of eyes are suddenly riveted upon her, but Snape leaps to her rescue. Sort of.

"This is Hermione Granger," he says, shortly, "She's my alibi. An alibi with whom I am leaving."

"What? You're not really going. After all this hard work?" Pyromaniac Brian appears to be put out at the prospect.

"Townes, the last place I want to be this evening is within a half mile of you and the rest of this merry band of morons. Someone has to be an adult here, and think about what they're going to tell insurance when half the building explodes."

"I resent that. As if I haven't done this a hundred times already," Brian scoffs. "I know what I'm about. You could show a little respect." Respect? This fellow clearly did not realise that he was speaking to one Severus Snape.

"You will have earned a modicum of respect once you've consistently demonstrated incorporation of the term 'plausible deniability' into your respective vocabularies. I wash my hands of you idiots; good day." The effect of this pronouncement is somewhat ruined when he pauses, mid-stride, to query "Have any of you seen my sports jacket? I could swear I left it back here."

"This is it, yes?" The Slav has wandered in as well; he tosses a bundle of drab brown fabric in Snape's direction, and then peers down at the clipboard he's armed himself with. "How about you, Jahmshid, you want pizza?" He says, turning to another member of the cult. Collective. Whatever.

"I have to go for prayer, but you can save me some; I'll be back later. No bacon, and make sure—"

"We know, we know. So no olives, anchovies, or bacon; one veg, one pepperoni, one cheese—"

Val is frowning. "I don't see why we can't have one with anchovies. It's _my_ credit card, after all. In fact, I don't see why I'm not the one placing the order."

"Now, Valentine. You know we cannot allow this; only competent people can order the pizza."

"Competent? And you think you fit that descriptor, Alojz? Watch this, we'll all end up with sauerkraut on our slice. And vodka, instead of soda. And don't call me 'Valentine'."

"You are mixing your stereotypes, Valentine. Slivovitz. Is better than vodka, no hangover."

"I swear to God, if you call me Valentine one more time, I will never speak to you again."

"Oi, Valentine, does that go for everyone?" Maddie grins, as the call is taken up by half the building.

Val exhales through clenched teeth. "Mr. Snape? When can I schedule a meeting with you in regards to evictions? My _guests_ have about overstayed their welcome."

Snape smirks. "Technically, I have no authority to evict your guests. Valentine."

"You bastard," he mock-wails, "I thought you were on my side – I pay the rent; on time, even!"

"Ah, that's where you're mistaken. I'm on _my_ side."

"I hope you die."

"That has been the ardent wish of more people than you can possibly imagine."

"Why?" He asks, sourly, "Have you burned down an orphanage? Worked a kill shelter? Conducted telemarketing for an office supply company?"

Snape's upper lip twitches. "Oh, much worse than any of that: I taught school."

There is nearly instant silence. Maddie eventually breaks it with a disbelieving laugh, "Go on, pull the other one. What'd you teach, then?"

"Chemistry."

"Good Lord, you're not serious? Your students must've been scarred for life."

Snape appears to contemplate this, as he shrugs into his sports jacket. "I don't know. Would you say you were scarred for life, Miss Granger?"

His unconscious use of an outdated honorific spirals her back into his classroom - no matter that he's dressed in casual Muggle clothing, no matter that two decades have passed. He's Professor Snape, and she's sixteen again, and aware that her mouth has gone dry. She swallows. Thinks about polyjuice equations and citations. Thinks about a library of books, with answers to every real dilemma she's encountered. Thinks about a postcard with eight words that bleed into a wedding veil. "Maybe," she says, finally.


	12. Harm

**Part XII**

Come along, he says, and she does. Like a well-trained dog, a beagle perhaps. Harry's children have one. They are not terribly bright creatures, but following orders seems within their limited capabilities. Beagles, she means. And her. She can follow orders.

Or maybe he doesn't say anything, only gestures, a meaningful look and a tilt of his head. And she takes a deep breath, plunges back through the mayhem, chasing after the sight of his blandly innocuous sports jacket, so absurd in such a setting, so absurd on such a well-remembered frame.

However it happens, she emerges into the wan evening light a pace behind him. She is close enough that she can smell his aftershave, something piney and bright. It's another piece that doesn't fit. He should smell of dark places, subtleties of dusty books and potions ingredients, the faintest whiff of leather, the tang of staled coffee.

He half-turns to appraise her. She can't read his expression. It is something like curiosity mingled with wry humour or else it isn't. Their eyes meet, anyway, and in that moment between his slightly parted lips and a breath of words that will [she is certain] irrevocably drag them from known past to unknowable present, she reaches out to clasp at his forearm, to assure herself, flesh to flesh, that he is no figment of her addled imagination.

His eyes break from hers to peruse her fingers, lightly splayed across the juncture of coarse brown woolen coat sleeve and pale skin. She watches his lips quirk, as he gingerly lifts her offending hand. He meets her eyes again, and she thinks she might read challenge there. He readjusts his fingers upon hers, drawing her index and middle fingers into parallel lines that transect the faint ridges of veins when he releases them upon his upturned wrist. The black lines of a serpent's tongue flick down from beneath his cuff. Perhaps it would seem to undulate in the right light, something low and close. She can feel the hot rush of his blood, the steady beating of his heart. The rhythm of it should make her calm, but every moment in which she is too tense to breathe only exacerbates the panic (or is it something else?) that is coiling in her gut.

He drops his wrist away from her as she chances one shaky gulp of air. There is something about the way he leans away, against the iron railing, which strikes her as studied despite his nonchalant survey of the building opposite. "This entire neighbourhood is changing faster than I could've imagined." His voice is completely indifferent, not emotionless but bored, uncaring. This is some cover for whatever has been communicated through ritual of fingertips and pulse.

"You've been here all along? Since -–"

"Yes." It's clipped, underwritten with an impatient tightening of his lips. "And before. It was convenient, at times, to have a retreat that wasn't on either side's registry." Perhaps not so impatient after all? Or maybe he's revising on the fly, trying to decide what trajectory they're on, just as lost as she is. It is a faintly chilling thought. She is used to him knowing all the answers. It is, perhaps, why she continued to strive to know everything in turn. But she doesn't know how to respond to this new bit of information, or whether he even expects a response. She stares out at the scaffolding across the way instead.

An eternity passes, until she realises that he is peering at her, surreptitiously, from behind the curtain of his hair. He glances away when their eyes brush again. "Did you want to get coffee?" He asks, finally. "Or whatever."

She nods, but he's decidedly not-looking at her, so, "That would be fine."

"Something around here, or are you partial to that Hungarian place?"

"How do you know –-" Understanding comes on a wave of vertigo.

He turns to face her fully, and she sees he's smirking. Not much, just a little twitch at the corner of his mouth, but there's a matching glint of deviltry in his dark eyes. "You really shouldn't give your address out to just anybody. They could be stalkers. Or they could know stalkers. Not that anyone's confessing anything, mind."

Has he followed her, then? Watched her through the half-curtained window as she sips her coffee? Studied her as she's marked up reprints, scribbled notes? And why?

The question must have formed across her brow, or in the way she's bit at the inside of her lip, because he answers it: "I was trying to decide. Whether to respond to your manuscript." She mentally substitutes _how_ for _whether_ , and wonders if it's not closer to the truth. He has not only revealed himself but given her access to his sanctum. These are not, she intuits, the actions of a man undecided about whether to send someone a packet of pages torn from his lab notebooks. Perhaps he has been watching her longer than he's admitted. Well, wake up, Hermione, it's a certainty, isn't it? Red words drip through her mind. _I have read your article with great interest_.

Is 'great' a meaningful quantity? And of what, really?

"So. About coffee?"

"Wherever. Here." He does not belong amidst the embroidered flowers and the marzipans. It's a space that _she_ has claimed, as her own. Dead men can stay on their side of the glass. For now, anyway.

He nods. "There's a place up the street. It's… a bit… well, their espresso is top-notch."

With that glowing endorsement, who could resist? She gestures for him to lead the way. She doubts either of them really cares about the coffee anyhow. It is just something to be doing, a kind of adult fidgeting. You slow a conversation down, catch a good look at what someone is saying. Decide how you'll respond, before you do. It's why the girls all wanted to go to Madam Puddifoot's - yes, to be seen there, but also to avoid getting boxed in by words that might mean more than they seem to.

She can feel her face heating, at this unfortunate parallel with the tea shop and its giggling hordes. And now she can't un-think it, but he's not really Professor Snape anymore, or is he? Well, it hardly matters: she's no innocent schoolgirl. Hermione Granger, Top Swot of Gryffindor Tower, had never spared a thought for Professor Snape's agile hands.

That came later.

Once he was safely dead.

She is so busy trying to cram this back into the deep dark corners of her brain that she is wholly startled to find they've stopped. It's the warehouse with the construction spools and the graffiti. _BOURGEOIS CUNTS._ It's on the door, too, in golden curlicue script. The door, which Snape is holding open for her, so she steps forward, instead of back. _It's a bit…_ indeed. Well, she isn't about to be intimidated by a coffee bar. Even one with spanners, screwdrivers, and circular saw blades randomly cemented into the floor. She's seen the sub-cellar at Malfoy Manor, after all, and not much will make you blink after that.

She picks her way past a decorative arrangement of old gin crates, in order to lean her elbows on the bar while perusing the specialties menu. There's a goodly selection of cocktails, but This. Is. Not. A. Date. (She and Ronald had tried having date nights. With cocktails, even. It had been spectacularly boring, aside from determining how many she could tie on and still apparate home in one piece.) She firmly banishes both Ronald, and Madam Puddifoot's, from her mind once more, and orders a hazelnut latte, because she has it on good authority that the espresso is decent here.

Snape insists on paying, and she shrugs after a token argument. He's probably got more money than she has, anyway. Did he manage to collect life insurance, she wants to ask. There's a little bubble of slightly-hysterical laughter ricocheting around inside of her; she bites the inside of her cheek, and tests her latte.

It's good. Not as good as the coffee Laslzo provisions her with, but then, it's more a dessert than a proper cup of brain-starter. She rolls some of the tension out of her shoulders while Snape is occupied with choosing their table. She rejects the one by the window; it's unfair for one of them to be backlit and expressionless, whilst the other is put on display by the sun's waning light. She bets that choice was deliberate on his part; he'd have to have instincts for that kind of thing. Once a spy…

A roadsign clamped to a pair of sawhorses and lit by a dangling incandescent bulb fitted with wire guards proves an acceptable compromise. She seats herself on a varnished construction spool. Crosses her arms. Uncrosses them. "It's got ambience, anyway," she finally opines, for something to say.

"It does at that. It was an attempt at a high-end lingerie shop, a few years ago. That's when it was first tagged."

"Tagged?"

"The graffiti. The lease has changed hands a few times, and this lot have finally got a sense of humour about everything. I expect the place is on its way to becoming a fixture. If there's one thing London will always support, it's another pub."

She nods; it's probably true. They appear to have descended to axioms. Maybe it's a date after all, because this is what happens, in her experience. She shakes the thought out of her head with an admonishment to be serious.

She must have visibly twitched as well, because Snape sighs and carefully sets his mug down. He steeples his fingers beneath his chin and gazes solemnly at her. In that grave instant he is fully once more the critical taskmaster, the domineering genius; both the secret friend she cherished in the margins of her stuttering attempts at serious work and the unknowable mentor whose own experiments she painstakingly reconstructed from green-ruled notebooks, and ultimately surpassed.

"I confess I'm still surprised you've come. But I suppose you are curious, that you have questions."

She can't really respond to this. She isn't sure why she's come. Curiosity is a good enough excuse. Curiosity killed the cat. Except that it didn't, old age did. She shrugs; he can interpret that how he likes.

"Go on, then."

"I suppose I mostly want to know why."

"Any particular 'why', or are you after the existential?"

"Why send that note in the first place? Why invite me to call you, to meet?"

He opens his mouth to answer, stops. Worries his lower lip behind the raised coffee mug, probably thinking she won't see. Begins again, "I think… I wanted to talk to you. I've never actually spoken with you before, and I find I have no idea who you are."

"Why now, then? Why not any time in the past decade or more?"

"You mean the postcard."

No, she hadn't. Well, yes, but… Well, yes, fine, that's it exactly. "Why did you send it in the first place?"

He is silent. Beyond a faint tension in his lips, his face reveals nothing, and his eyes are looking past her. Abstraction is a country which you cannot travel to or from with any great haste, so she studies him with impunity.

This is not unlike the long glances she was sometimes afforded, when there was a lull in her brewing and she could contemplate the potions master: either seated at his desk, or idly flipping through the inevitable tome upon his lectern, or even stalking up and down the rows, arms tightly folded over his chest to prevent the long sleeves of his robes dragging through their work. He seems just as unaware of her scrutiny now. The only differences lie in how much smaller the physical space between them. She can see the lines at the corners of his mouth and between his brows, purpled shadows beneath his eyes, the beginnings of stubble, that his sideburns have been trimmed slightly uneven, that there are stray silver strands at his temples, disappearing behind his ears where he has pushed his hair away from his face. She's never seen his ears before. They are almost delicate; strangely graceful and thus at odds with the promontory of his nose. She wonders what, if anything, it signifies that he tucks back his hair now.

"There are a lot of people who would be pleased to know you're alive," she offers finally, tentatively; anything to break the quiet.

His mouth twists up in what could be a mocking smile in some particular light, but here is only a grimace. "There are a lot of people who would like to own me again, you mean. I have had my fill of being a possession, thank you."

She nods, she can understand this, and so she shares her own metaphor for what they were: "A playing piece."

He tilts his head in acknowledgement. "You'll understand, then, that I would prefer…" He trails off, and there is a slight pinking of his sallow cheekbones, as if he is embarrassed by what he was about to say.

Oh. "Who would I tell, even if I were inclined?" Well, Harry, but no. She'd have to give him backstory and context, and… No.

He gives her a short nod, a little ducking of his chin, as though they have accomplished some mutually acceptable transaction. Perhaps they have. She sips her latte.

"I don't know why I sent it." This snaps her attention back; she'd half-thought he meant to ignore her after all, but he is continuing in spite of his earlier reticence. "There are half a dozen different things I could tell you, but the truth, the only truth of it, is that I have no idea. I don't know what I thought to accomplish by it. There was no clear good it could have done. You were standing on your own two feet, you'd taken those ideas we shared and created something brilliant. And you had plenty of people telling you so, I know Uncle Tibs fairly raved over you. So if there was no good it could do, I'm left to presume that my sending it was intended to produce harm. And I am sorry for that, because it was not something you deserved at my hand. At anyone's."

His eyes, guileless and a little sad, are searching her face. She isn't sure what reaction he's looking for, or what her own eyes convey. The trouble is, she doesn't believe him. Severus Snape, repentant martyr, is at odds with the reality of this man, sitting in front of her, very much alive and breathing in his scruffy sports jacket and Led Zeppelin tee, nervously toying with the handle of his mug. She'd believe that the dead one, Professor Snape, might have chosen to submit malice via the daily mail. That fellow's goals and aims were obvious and one-dimensional. She could accept a superficial explanation from him. But not this man, who had at least cared enough for himself to keep on living.

"The moment I tipped it in the mailbox, I regretted having done so. There were so many people, I couldn't risk being seen summoning it back, and by the time the crowd had cleared, well, they'd collected the post, and… I hoped, later, that perhaps it hadn't delivered. Your research ticked along just fine, and you'd gotten married, stayed out of the press; nothing amiss, that I could tell, from reading your papers."

Plenty had been amiss. But she's confused now, why did he think she'd gotten married after – oh. She'd started using her married name after that first article. So was it her reversion to 'Granger', on the latest submission, that had drawn him out of the woodwork? Was he curious, did he think he could satisfy his pet hypothesis, pin some blame upon his note? Decide, finally, whether or not he'd intended to provoke some distress by sending it in the first place? She pictures him, standing in front of his shaving mirror, and asking himself, _Well, Snapey my lad, are you a good person or ain't you?_ Sinner or saint.

The trouble is, the world does not fall into neatly dichotomous categories.

It has been her turn to sit in abstraction. Her mind travels on, to a cramped yellow room and a rickety café table and the little pool of warmth that wells up when Laszlo recognizes her as his regular. "I think," she says, tasting her words as they slowly fill the space between them, "That if any forgiveness is necessary, you may certainly have it. But I think you're wrong. I think you sent it because you wanted someone to know that you existed, that you were real. It's easy to lose track of whether or not you're real, I've found."

He looks away, focussing on his hands, which are still now. "Maybe that's it," he finally says.

They finish their drinks in silence, and exit the café in unspoken accord. Did you want me to walk with you to the station, he asks, but she declines. Let me know if you have any questions about the papers I sent you, you know where to find me. She does. She nods goodbye, and hurries away. Back to her yellow room. Huddled beneath her blankets, she twists her fingers in the fabric, but it's no good: she can still feel his pulse.


	13. Suppositions

**Part XIII**

She wakes from a dream of stickiness, of blood. She has been back in the moldering remains of the Shack, and the sharp metallic smell of it is overwhelming. She has pressed her fingers against the fountain of it, and dark rivulets flow down over her white knuckles, and he says, look at me, and she is pushed aside and it seems then that the blood is welling from her own hands, or no, not her hands, but from between her thighs, blossoming beneath her robes as she lays here on the floor, back pressed hard against the cold ceramic base of the toilet, teeth clenched against a piteous moan of apology to the universe at large. To Severus Snape.

It didn't happen like that. She recites the phrase over again, silently mouthing the words. It wasn't like that. And it slowly dawns on her that she's awake, and it _really wasn't_. Not at all. Because he's alive.

He's alive.

She claws her way out from beneath her blankets and stumbles, in the grey half-light, to lean against the cool glass of the windowpane. She can feel this, it's real. She reaches out to brush Mini-Plant's leaves, and even though she can't see the variegations, their smooth, slightly damp feel is enough indication that they're real, too. And she feels silly having done this, so she turns this odd gesture into something practical, and pokes the soil around Plant's base. It's getting a little dry, she'll give it some water later. She lifts her hand to her face, hoping to smell earth, clean dirt. Anything to get the odour of blood out of her nose, out of her mind.

Her fingers are smeared over, with something dark and tacky. She turns her hand, like a foreign object, while tendrils of cold coil in her stomach. Not a dream, her mind supplies, as she frowns at the blood crusting along her cuticles. Not – no, of course it was. She plucks at her knickers. "Fuck." She startles at the volume of her own voice, but she's quite sure she's awake now. "I liked this pair," she whines for good measure, as she pulls the cord on the light, above what passes for a bathroom sink.

She turns the tap to run cold water. It's not so different than it was back in school, always fretting about spots and stains, and _why_ wasn't there a good spell to repel blood from fabric? Maybe there was. Molly probably knew one. She'd never asked, never thought to. But it would have come in handy, and not just for blood. She'd had a 'Potions set' of robes, because even the house elves couldn't launder the worst of what she occasionally splashed. Professor Snape's robes had never looked grimy, though – maybe he knew some decent charms for it. She could ask him. Her fingers tighten involuntarily on the wet fabric, and it takes conscious effort to remember how to open them.

He's alive. But she can't think about that now. Not until she's had a cup of tea, gotten showered. Sorted out her bloody knickers.

She grimaces: one of the stains won't lift. Soap? Chlorine? Just give it up as a bad job? She misses contraceptives. There'd been whole years, when she hadn't had to worry about waking up to something like this. But it was just like Lavender Brown had said, sooner or later they always stopped working, so you had best get a thermometer and keep track of your temperature. It's the kind of thing that every witch knew. Except Hermione, of course, so it was lucky, in retrospect, that Lavender was a horrid chatterbox – she'd actually learned something important from her, despite her younger self's annoyance that they couldn't take their gossip elsewhere.

Her present self gives up scrubbing, shoves the stopper in the sink, and runs some water. She'll let them soak, and maybe that will accomplish something. Wonder of wonders, the sheets have escaped. She switches the electric kettle on, sees that there's still some blood on her hand, and retreats to the shower.

Has anything really changed, though? She watches a swirl of colour, rust-pink, as it dilutes across the tile, disappears toward the drain. He is alive, yes, but so what? She is not a part of a world where this makes any real difference, nor is he. He doesn't owe her anything, and neither of them owes the past.

Unless, of course, the past owes them – owns them? Did his apologies of yesterday anticipate absolution? For the postcard? For setting her on this path to begin with? For… she can't imagine that he would want to be forgiven for having abandoned her, because surely it only looks that way from her own self-absorbed perspective. 'Because I wanted to talk to you' he said. What does that even mean?

She scrubs her body and wonders what these years have looked like to him. What kind of person is he, now – or was he always? There is a version of this man who inhabits her mind, but how much reality does that invention encompass? Can the two be reconciled – and does she need to?

She should not, she firmly admonishes, as she binds her hair in a towel, be making her life any more complicated than it is.

A bedsit, a shrunken library, a rejected manuscript, an estranged husband, and a cup of tea do not really offer enough permutations to qualify as 'complicated', but she hasn't had that tea yet, and the older she gets, the broader her definitions are in the absence of caffeine.

The question at the core of this is, what does she want of him? Not of her distant childhood mentor, nor of the fantasy figure with his deft hands, but of the man who sat across from her in his scruffy muggle clothes, with his searching sad eyes? There is only one Severus Snape who is real, and she needs to figure out if she desires any of whatever he imagines he might owe her.

Does _she_ owe _him_ anything?

She places her mug of tea upon the bedside table with careful deliberation, and seats herself cross-legged against the headboard. The iron struts behind her shoulder blades remind her of the way the lavish carvings on her dormitory bed used to dig at her spine. The sheaf of pages that she pulls from the confines of their manila envelope have a slightly herbal scent that she hadn't noticed in yesterday's sunny afternoon. Here it mingles with swirling dust motes that catch in the square of dawn that is creeping across her tangled bedding. She ducks her face into the pages and inhales. Her shoulders have hunched in, an involuntary reaction. She scowls and straightens. No one can see her here. And yet she sets the pages down, summons a notebook and a biro, and prepares to be properly detached and scientific about this.

She can't quite convince herself that he's set her a challenge. It is more likely that he simply refused, for whatever reason, to annotate these pages for her convenience. A fast shuffle through them does not reveal intent or connection; they seem disorganized, disjunct. But she has spent plenty of time with his mind before. She takes a sip of tea, readies her biro, and starts again at the beginning. There will be a thread, somewhere; she only has to find it.

She skims through a ream of notes on alginates and elastins, on preparations of shellac. It is clear enough why he sent these; the correspondence with her own work is obvious. She pauses to marvel at a table of observations: from what she can tell, he's encapsulated a reactive dye and subjected the resultant beads to digestion in varying concentrations of hydrochloric acid, and then in solutions of pepsins and bicarbonate. It is obvious enough that he's simulated digestion. There are lines scratched through whole columns – not enough to obscure the data, but certainly a statement of frustration. She can see gouges and miniscule rips where the point of his quill dug in too deeply. The back of one of these pages contains a scrawled list:

 **C** 12 **H** 19 **NO** 20 **S** 3  
warfarin? oral  
acetylsalicylic acid **C** 9 **H** 8 **O** 4  
 _Echis carinatus_

It strikes her as an aside, a semi-random doodle of a distracted mind. There are no other mentions in the next several pages; she flips through to make sure. No, it's more of the same. He tried suspending a powder of something in a gel matrix, it looks like. That too was subjected to pepsins, and then the matter abandoned. Shellacs have a whole page, he seems to have spent some time with them: the consistency and flow of his ink changes at least four times, and there are random spatters and smears of something spilled on the page. She isn't surprised to find that these offenses have fixed this page to the one behind it. Do they belong together? Or did he just not make an effort to peel them apart, before he ripped them out of his lab book? She summons the cloth from her shower; it's still damp, and per her suspicion, moistening the paper allows her to tease the pages from one another.

The second is also arranged in a table, and it gives her an icy chill: its columns are headed _Dose (µg/kg)_ , _Coag time (s)_ , _Venom concentration (µg/L_ ); halfway down the page the 'Dose' column becomes _Neutral blood draw + X compound (µg/L)_ – she senses that the data have not been cooperating with him, and that he has given up careful analysis in favour of ex vivo experimentation. _E. carinatus ᵟsoln._ shows up here. And _neostigmine_ , too. Threads, just threads. But he was clearly thinking in the same direction she did, and she sloshes her tea when she tries to lift it, to drink. There are sharp scrawls all across the margins: _worthless useless idiocy fuck this waste of time stupid pointless._

It is clear enough that he has been attempting to create a prophylactic, one compound or several, some measure to prolong his life, to cheat death. Her breathing has gone so shallow, and she feels lightheaded, a horrified nausea clawing at her throat. A small sound escapes her, a sort of animal gasp, and then there are burning tears pooling into the corner of her mouth. How must he have felt, meeting failure after failure – for there are no successes writ in the tables, only hashes, X's, unrelenting strokes through entry after entry. How must he have felt, pursuing these fruitless endeavours, certain in the knowledge that it could only be a matter of time before he met one bad end or another?

 _worthless useless idiocy fuck this waste of time stupid pointless_

The experiments, or himself?

The last of the pages is titled _Weasley_ _antivenin_ , but is a tabulation of dissolution rates; shellacs are back, and so too are alginate gels, a collagen compound, and what looks to be a kind of cellulose acetate. Atop all this is a spatter of ink and firm letters that form the words 'permits only inadequate quantities'. They are the most deliberate words he's written throughout these pages, every letter well-formed and distinct. They are a judgement, not unlike the way he graded papers. His letter grades could never be mistaken for one another, no matter how hard Harry and Ronald had tried. And these words are just as certain, an indictment of failure far more desperate and abject than harmless 'T'. Only the ink spatters convey that this proclamation may have been accompanied by any emotion.

She swipes at her face again. She isn't crying, but her eyes won't stop watering. So acute is this problem that at first she fails to notice the note scratched at the bottom of the page: _keep it simple, stupid._ The word _portkey_ is enclosed in a sphere labelled _gel_ , itself surrounded by the words _shellac_ _capsule_.

She half-stumbles, half-falls off the bed, laughing like something possessed. It's too beautiful, too perfect, too absolutely, irredeemably pragmatic. Her every scenario had ground down on the need for a co-conspirator – he'd bypassed scenarios entirely, and probably bled all over Tibs' dining room floor. She stuffs a fist against her mouth, bites hard at her knuckle, but it's no use, another hysterical gale collapses her onto the floor again. Finally, her ribs are aching too much to sustain more than the occasional weak chuckle, and she wonders to what extent the mysterious Dr. Prince has been manipulating her. Them. Her.

Because if her suppositions are correct, it is clear enough that he was likely party to his nephew's pursuit of the same theories she'd so smugly written up in a short note. She is no longer sure of the terrain here in Slytherin-Land: does Tibs want Snape acknowledged? Does he genuinely want them working together? Were there even three reviewers? He'd said that he thought her idea was quite brilliant, but _that_ can't have been the truth. How much else is suspect?

She takes a deep, calming breath, untangles her feet from the sheets that are snarled up around her legs – no wonder she fell – and pulls herself into some semblance of a dignified posture. She's still on the floor, but you can't tell that over a mobile. She presses in his number before she can think better of it.

It rings a long time. It's still early, she's probably waking him.

Connection, finally, but the voice that answers it is all wrong. A woman's voice. That Irish lilt can only be Maddie O'Shea. "'Lo, how's the day treating you then?"

"I… I was calling for Mr. Snape." She should hang up. She should hang up _now_.

"Right, mate. Here he is," then, from a distance, "It's for you, Severus."

"Of course it is. It's my mobile. Good morning?"

"Er, good morning. It's Hermione Granger."

"Yes?"

"I, uh, I had some questions. About, about…"

"The papers I sent. Fast questions, or… No, just come over. I have the morning free."

Her hands are clammy when she disconnects, and nothing is the slightest bit amusing anymore. She jabs a cleaning charm at a pair of denims and a tee that she thinks probably still fits. She really _must_ do the laundry properly. It is time to grow up.

Or to pretend familiarity with the state, at a bare minimum. She wonders if there are niceties to be observed, and wishes, once again, that she'd been prescient enough to ask Molly's advice. She'll bring pastries, she decides. It doesn't hint at familiarity the way bringing coffee might, and she won't have to knock on his door empty-handed. The Hungarian café is out – she can't fathom that sweets are in order – but she knows a bake shop that sells croissants. That is casual enough, without looking cheap. She is a professional, after all. A near-colleague, and not some grimy schoolchild.

White paper pastry bag in hand, and the smell of butter in her nose, she pops into existence in Hackney Wick, half-hidden in the shadows of construction works. Crews are coming to life; she hears the low grumble of a crane, a distant shout of _Oi, watch yerself!_ , the clang of hammers, the high whine of saws. The day is fully in motion, even as she's thinking forlornly of her bed, and wishing she were back in it. With a hot water bottle, perhaps.

But she told him she would come. She squares her shoulders and sets off to the warehouse. The Slav is sitting on the concrete step, smoking a cigarette. He forestalls her greeting by pointing to the far end of the building. Is she expected, or has he merely ascertained she has no business with any of their little cult?

Or does she? Is Snape only the landlord, or is he a participant? And why are they even here – it hadn't sounded, from the way they talked, that he collected much rent off them. It is odd, but not, she decides, her mystery to solve. Her lips turn down in a wry smirk. She is procrastinating, she acknowledges.

Snape's domicile, if such it is, is not thematically distinct from the larger part of the warehouse. There is no graffiti, and the pavement is free of rubbish. The windows are conspicuously clean, and one even has a window box beneath it. There are little green spikes poking up out of its soil. That, and the mat in front of the door, are such unexpected touches of domesticity that she is nearly cowed by them. The only thing that prevents her departing immediately is that the doormat reads _UNWELCOME_.

She re-rolls the top of the bag, and presses the buzzer with the last spasm of courage she owns. She is cognizant in that moment that this is a remarkably daft idea.

Evidence of that supposition opens the door. It's the red-headed urchin, Maddie O'Shea. Her mop of hair is tousled, there are archeological smudges of dark makeup circling her narrow eyes, and she is wearing nothing more than an unflattering tee and a pair of knickers. "Hullo?" she asks, peering at Hermione as if trying to place her, "You're the bird from yesterday evening, right?"

"I, umn, Mr. Snape said to stop 'round this morning. I, uh, I brought croissants." It's so inane. Why is there no construction around here, there'd at least be some saving grace in the chance of being brained by a falling brick.

"Knock your boots off and come in. Severus, your company's here!" She turns back to Hermione, "Thank the Lord you've come prepared. Croissants are perfect, Severus hasn't got the faintest clue about breakfast. It's been oatmeal all week."

"Fuck you too," the man himself says conversationally, as Hermione follows her in. Snape is dressed once more in muggle civvies, a button-down shirt and nondescript trousers. He looks to have been awake for some little time; he's shaven and his hair appears slightly damp. "You're entirely welcome to exert your own good self, you know. Good morning, Ms. Granger. Coffee, or tea?"

God, and what can she do? Deposit the croissants and flee? It's too ridiculous. "Coffee, ta."

"This way, Ms. Granger. Maddie, tell me you didn't answer the door like that."

"Of course not. I just naturally took my trousers off after I said 'hello'. Doesn't everyone?"

For all Snape's drawling tone, she can't help but feel that she's walked into a particularly awkward situation. She looks around, anywhere but in the direction of her host. Hosts, plural? The room is vast and open. There are bookcases towering along the far walls, but everywhere else is a sprawling confusion of greenery, tendrils and fronds, leaves and stems, an explosion of tropical growth twisting down from hanging baskets, striving toward the wash of sunlight that filters in through the bank of windows. She pivots on her heel in quiet wonderment, before noting, belatedly, that Snape has retreated to the region of the room that serves as his kitchen.

Maddie relieves her of the pastry bag, and beckons for her to follow them. Snape rattles up a cafetière, and no one says anything. Maddie retrieves a baking tin, and finally breaks the silence, swatting at Snape's hands as he reaches for the bag. "Leave off, Snape, I've got this. I am _exerting_." She spreads the pastries across the tin, readying them for reheating. It's such a bizarrely muggle action; Hermione experiences a sense of reality slippage as she simultaneously understands what the young woman is doing, and wonders why she doesn't just use a wand.

She accepts the cup that Snape passes her. He doesn't offer sugar. Clearly he took notes while he was stalking her. She perches on one of the stools at the kitchen island and tries to suffocate her discomfort with a bland smile. She wants to run. Not quite screaming, but certainly not grinning this frangible mask.

"I don't know why you won't even consider it." Maddie is stirring sugar into her own cup, and her voice is plaintive. "You told Cathy you would."

There is only slight annoyance in the crease of his brow, but she knows that his lips, when pressed that tight, are closed against something particularly biting. What he says, though, is mild. "That was a long time ago. And I am entirely uninterested in becoming party to your disagreements. I am Switzerland; take your battles elsewhere."

"I'm not asking for you to get involved. Just… I really want her for the exhibit."

"No."

"Look, I don't even need the entire series, just Faceless Girl. Just one itsy painting."

"Cajoling isn't going to work, and you can stop pestering, too. No. That painting doesn't mean what you think it does, anyway."

"Oh, come on. Art is subjective."

"And I'm a plebeian. No." He rises, and tends to the croissants, and Maddie scowls viciously into her mug.

"What if… what if I talked to Cathy, and she said it was fine and…"

"Switzerland. Not bloody Canada. Find a peacekeeper elsewhere. And give up on The Faceless Girl, I'm not loaning her to your exhibit."

Maddie pulls a pout. It is a surprisingly adorable expression, and Hermione cringes. "If you really loved me, you would."

"Probably. Haven't you got things to do, today? Ms. Granger's time is valuable, and I'm fairly certain she is entirely uninterested in this."

What she is, is aghast at being stripped of her observer status, but Maddie only sighs agreeably, snags a croissant, and heads toward the door. She stoops to pick up a bag, and there's not much left to the imagination.

"Well, I'm off to The Hive, then. Have fun, don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"There are things you wouldn't do?" Snape's tone is dry as the Sahara.

She lifts a brow, and appears to consider this. "Don't know. Probably? I mean: murder, arson, larceny, theft, wanton destruction of property… OK. Murder. Although if the circumstances -"

"Go," Snape commands.

She scowls fiercely again, but hefts her bag up on her shoulder. "Watching daytime American soap operas. I wouldn't do that, and you shouldn't either."

Snape huffs a breath of laughter, "How about Corrie?"

"Christ. Try a little: EastEnders at least, you grimy manc."

"See, it's pejoratives like that, what get you in trouble. You're going to finish dressing before you leave, I hope?"

"Honestly." Her voice is filled with withering scorn. "How long have you known me?" She steps out the door, and it clunks shut behind her. Snape's expression is merely resigned.


	14. Faceless Girl

**Part XIV**

"So. Questions? Although I hope you won't mind not asking about _that_. Chiefly because I can't answer in any satisfying way."

Hermione realises that her mouth is hanging open. This is absolutely no business of hers, but telling herself so doesn't stop her cheeks flaming.

"I really can't, you know. I have this theory that she was dropped on her head as an infant, but it seems like the kind of accusation you shouldn't make of someone's mother. So I don't know." He spreads his palms, and one corner of his mouth is raised in an innocent, helpless smile.

She releases some of her embarrassment in a breathy chuckle, as if she is sharing his jape, and inside she wilts a little further. But alright, questions – for which ones does she have any right to an answer? "Needless to say, I've looked over your experiments, your results. I can see why Dr. Prince wanted to put me in contact with you," she begins.

"Or vice versa. Has he not got you trained into a more informal mode of address, yet?" Snape's amusement hasn't abated, and he seems to be inviting her to partake of further jesting.

"Sadly, yes. Why is that?" She has an opportunity to ask, so what harm could it do?

"Uncle Tibs is a character, but you really should make an effort to ask me something I can answer."

"Sorry." Her fingers have tightened on the handle of the mug. It is passing strange to hear Professor Snape saying something as inane as 'Uncle Tibs'. She'd gotten used to the idea of him as someone's son, but 'Eileen' is a dowdy name, the sort you find at the back of a photograph, or propped up glowering in a dimly lit corner. It draws no attention to itself, it recedes into meaningless history behind the reality of swishing black robes, tense shoulders, narrowed eyes and the menacing grace he'd projected stalking amongst them.

But someone who has an 'Uncle Tibs' is at once awkward and odd, and strangely approachable, the sort who apologizes when you've mistaken their intent. "No, I didn't mean – I only – It's just that he's odd, I mean. Not to cut you off. Let's see, let me think how to put this. I think he likes people to underestimate him. It's not false friendliness, exactly, just… he disarms a person before they even realise what's happened. I sometimes think it's part of a grand strategy, but then I talk to him again, and I decide I have absolutely no idea if that's wishful thinking or not."

"You keep in touch with him." This is bordering upon what she decides she does want to know the answers to.

"Is that a question, or an observation? Yes, in any event. One's co-conspirator does thereafter hold a certain amount of power over oneself. Little chats become somewhat unavoidable."

His sardonic tone conveys more than his words alone do. He'd been bullied into contacting her. She should get to the point of this, and cease harassing him. "In looking over your work, it's become clear to me that –"

He has stood, and interrupts her: "Come; bring your coffee. I'll fetch my books – have you brought the pages I sent, by chance?"

She nods; she doesn't need clarifications of his work, she understands it at a level that is quite frankly molecular, but he's already heading into the jungle of plants. She follows obediently, and sits on the sofa he gestures to. There are coasters. She sets her mug down, and crosses her legs in what she faintly hopes is composure. She feels like an inkblot, glaringly grubby against the pristine white of the fabric.

For all the riot of life in this room, it is strangely antiseptic and impersonal: Every spray of greenery seems deliberately oriented, and she can't see any knickknacks or photographs. The only personal touches are the books, in their heavy dark cases, but they're not what she would have expected, either. The titles she can make out run to words like _Spin_ and _Memory_ , _Dune_ and _Neuromancer, Blue Mars_ and _The Forever War_. He is nimbly ascending a rolling ladder, retrieved from behind the staircase that leads to a loft, where she presumes he makes his bedroom. Instead of watching him retrieve his afore-mentioned lab books, she sneaks a peek at the back cover of the paperback he's left open on the end table. The publisher's blurb mentions "the ancient, inflexible laws governing the women of her class" – it does not seem like the sort of thing that Severus Snape would read. Maddie, then? On the balance, that's more likely. She returns it to the table, and watches as he descends the ladder. He has a collection of battered paperbacks that are even now shivering in his hands, as their concealing glamours fall away.

"I think I sent you nearly everything you might find of use. My indexing was off, though, towards the end." He seats himself across from her, and reaches to take the papers she's extracted from her satchel.

She should interrupt him, hurry this along and be done. But she realizes, with a pang like something snapping beneath her ribcage, that she isn't likely to ever see him again. This is the culmination of the conversation they began in assignments and margins. She will have no further excuses to seek him out in the future; this is the end of a tale that stretched too far.

"It's quantities that will be your limiting step; at least that was what I found."

"I saw that. That elastin gel –" She reaches forward to indicate the page "– Did adding the egg wrack affect its stability? I would think the organic acids would limit its usefulness, if they interacted with the suspension." She re-crosses her legs, faintly discomfited by the microscope sharpness of his eyes.

"Ah, here, let me find the procedure I used to purify the alginates. I culled it wholesale from a muggle research group in Ireland, it's a fairly standard commercial protocol. They're mostly inert, though I didn't experiment much with actual potions, you understand. I didn't have time, and I was trying to be clever, in case someone got creative with testing my blood. Most potions have a residual magical signature, it's just unavoidable.

But blood replenishing formulations are chemically similar to erythropoietin; I don't think that would react. And their anticoagulant additives – well, they're basically just thrombin inhibitors, and I did test those, so…" He trails off, as he flips through one manual, and then another. "I really should just give you all of these."

No, she wants to tell him. It's one last tenuous link. "On the contrary, I should be returning your library to you."

He frowns. "Don't be foolish, Miss Granger. It doesn't become you. It's a case of simple pragmatism: you have a use for the books, and I do not."

There is a weight crushing her down into the confines of the sofa. She tries to fight her way free of it. "Nevertheless, I can't begin to express how much I've appreciated your gift."

"Well, you've put them to good use, and it's more than I ever did." He tucks the loose pages inside the front cover of one manual, and presses the stack of them upon her, brushing off her feeble gratitude once more, "And I'm sure you'll continue to do so."

" _Echis carinatus_?" she asks, panicking as the termination of this short dialogue looms ever closer.

"Oh that. I suppose it might be worth looking into further. It's the saw-scaled viper, native to India; its venom has some interesting anti-coagulant properties. I isolated a whole suite of proteins, they're in that last book. Come to think of it, the solutions are probably still under a stasis spell at Hogwarts, unless someone broke through the wards on my lab. I'd tell you the password, only… well, it's a personal joke, really." He actually bites at his lip, and his fingers twist together in an involuntary action that he rapidly stills. "And I can't go and _fix it_. There are some things, Ms. Granger, which one does live to regret. Or that I have, anyway."

"I'm glad you have, though," she says, in all seriousness. "Glad that you lived."

He catches something of her tone, and his face becomes empty and expressionless. "Well."

This is the end, so it doesn't matter much, what he thinks of her once they've parted. "It tore my heart in two, Professor, to think that you'd cared so little for yourself."

He doesn't say anything, but she thinks she sees him swallow.

"F-for what it's worth, I'm glad that wasn't the case." If someone could only stupefy her now, before she digs any deeper.

He finally delivers the mercy blow, in the form of a small crooked smile. "Me too, Miss Granger. For what it's worth." It's an inexplicably kind expression that is centered more in his eyes than anywhere else, and she feels herself pulled into their depths.

Whatever might have passed between them in this moment, as it stretches out like a tightened wire, is irretrievably lost in a resounding crash from somewhere deep beyond the bookcases.

"Good God! What was that?"

Snape rolls his eyes, and his dry, sarcastic mien is instantly back in place. "If the building doesn't collapse, I dare say we'll never know. And be happier for it. One thing I've learned, with this lot, is that if you value your sanity, there comes a point when you need to embrace not knowing answers to questions like that."

"Willful ignorance as a skillset – I suppose you cultivated the talent as Head of Slytherin?" she responds to his wryness, but she must have gotten the tone wrong, because he shoots her a look of pure incredulity, the most movement she's seen on his face since the immediate aftermath of Maddie's departure.

"Lord, no. I grew up with Horace's example of where _that_ managerial strategy would lead. No, I only ever pretended ignorance of what went on in the Common Room. Had anyone truly clever ever sat down to compare notes, they'd have discovered a pervasive network of spies and counter-informants. Bless them, and the internecine paranoia that prevented their ever rallying together."

His lofty manner relieves her, and makes her smile. "You miss it."

"Parts, yes. Some parts, decidedly not."

His gaze has shifted to the arm of the sofa, and she is certain that this time, she _has_ put her foot in it. But after a moment, the tension vanishes from the line of his lips, and he raises his eyes. "Perhaps that's why I continue to tolerate these miscreants. There were always a few first-years… Just one or two, but a regular trickle of them over the years, who just seethed over with a blissful kind of nihilistic anarchy. I was always a little saddened when the House stomped that out of them, and they turned their energies to more genteel pursuits of power, cunning, and self-interest."

This angle of conversation seems to have run aground in his wistfulness. She can't decide how to respond, how to keep him talking. And it's too late, anyway. He rises, and casually levitates their respective mugs away to the kitchen sink, with nothing more than a lazy flick of his wrist.

"I never did learn how to do really basic things wandlessly," she confesses.

"Well, necessity is the mother of mastery, to bastardize the old saying." Confirmation, of sorts, that he doesn't have a wand anymore.

"You couldn't have gotten a wand through…" She realises the absurdity of this even as she's speaking.

"Through back channels, Slytherin friends? Black market wand makers, after Riddle had… No. And I wasn't about to ask Uncle Tibs to exert himself further on my behalf, either. You know what they say about secrets and three people."

Is this an unsubtle warning? Her face must have done something peculiar, because he starts laughing. It's a smooth, rich sound, thick like honey, and his own face is suddenly so open and bright, his eyes sparking as he leans against the bannister of the stair to recapture his dignity. "Good Lord, no. More fool me, I trust you entirely. I'd have kept to myself if I really thought you were anything less than circumspect. I'm sorry to have implied otherwise, yesterday. Truly."

These words should make her feel better; it's praise of sorts. But all there is, is a hard wedge of sadness in her stomach. She nods at him, because her throat is too tight to say anything. But somehow she has to choke out this last question, and no better segue is likely to manifest itself. "Do you know, what does Dr. – your uncle – what does he expect?"

"With respect to your manuscript, you mean? I can't tell for certain, but this has all the hallmarks of being one of his gentle shoves. I think you could just resubmit it. He didn't send me any of the reviewer comments, and when he gives me a first glance at your work, he does usually like to violate the niceties of peer review. It makes me think he didn't send it out in the first place. I'll tell him off for you, if you like?" He presents this last option with an abbreviated genuflection, a motion of one arm, which nonetheless evokes errant chivalry.

She starts to smile again, but her brain is worrying away at one of his phrases and it becomes a thoughtful frown instead. "What do you mean by 'gentle shoves'? If I can ask."

He casts his eyes up to the skylights in the ceiling. "The esteemed Dr. Prince has distinct opinions about how people should go about their lives. I wouldn't concern yourself with it. If any of my experiments end up being useful to you, I suppose you could just add my name as a posthumous coauthor again. He can't insist on more than that, and you can explain it truthfully as having utilized my work."

"Of course, that's certainly fair. And the idea was yours to begin with."

"Don't start down that road, Ms. Granger. You know there's nothing new under the sun. It doesn't diminish your own efforts to have independently arrived at similar conclusions – quite the contrary, in fact." He pauses, not to allow her to bask in these words, although she does, but clearly because he is carefully considering something. "Would you… Would you ever do any practical work? In Potions. If you had the space, the equipment?"

"Of course. I've only stuck with theory because—" She doesn't know how to complete this sentence. Because of Ronald?

"Then you need my things from Hogwarts, and that's all there is to it."

"I—I really can't accept anything more, you've done so much for me, I—" She stammers to a halt beneath his glare.

"Nonsense. Absolute and utter nonsense. Stop protesting, and come with me - I need to show you something, first, if only to salvage what little shreds of my dignity I have left. The password to my wards sounds astoundingly petty unless you've seen these."

She follows him back into a narrow hall that was hidden by the staircase. It must run behind the main body of The Hive. He pauses at a door, extracts a ring of keys, and unlocks it. There is a faint swish of displacing air, and he beckons her inside. The light, when he flips the switch, is only murky, dim, and there aren't any windows at all.

The air in this room has a sharp dry bite, and is too cold to be comfortable; her bare arms prickle up gooseflesh as she follows him past ranks of shelves. They are made of a slick, uniform grey metal - deep, and crowded with what she realizes are paintings. She can't see their subjects, because they are standing on end within the shelves, but rich pigments leap at her from their edges, barely repressed by the muted light and shadows. The center of the room is squared off by still more shelves, and Snape has paused at the table that fills this otherwise empty space. She watches him as he opens a binder, and scans through it.

"Here we are. This catalogue's dead useful, so in gratitude, I try to not to kick up much fuss when they want to come in to do any archival or conservation work." There is a drawer beneath the table, from which he extracts a pair of white cotton gloves; he slips them on before disappearing into the maze of artwork.

"I'm going to show you two of these. People always want to think of them as parts of a larger series, and they are, in terms of style and content; there's a repeat of motif and visual strategy. But the others were all done much, much later. These two belong together, and they're old friends of mine. This is the second of them, 'part two' as it were." He's re-emerged from the gloom, carrying a heavy panel that he gently lays across the table.

She leans over to examine it, sucked in almost against her will, by this gloriously macabre portrait of what might be a young woman. Pale fingers, with elegant shapely nails, frame the core image. They are finely rendered, and the delicate shadows that pick out the texture of their skin make them nearly ethereal. They are holding aloft the skin of this woman's face, which hangs from them like two dripping fabric wings, only vaguely attached to the woman's head, splayed out and open like some grotesque butterfly.

It is as if these fingers are patiently displaying another's handiwork – this woman's entire face is peeled away, a red mask that dangles inert from digits lacking any indication of tension. Nor is there anxiety or pain in the yellow cat's eyes that gaze out from deep sockets. What at first glance takes the form of exposed musculature is on closer inspection a panoply of miniscule writhing vipers, pierced and shredded by stylized cats' paws, claws mistakable as gleaming drops of blood.

She remembers to breathe, but it feels like it is a near thing.

"And here is the first one. This is the one Maddie wants for her exhibit. I think you will recognize her." He smiles, with the air of someone introducing a cherished acquaintance, and sets the frame in front of her.

The bronze placard at the bottom reads:

Eileen Prince, ca. 1950-2  
The F[ace]less Girl (I of II)

But in this rendition her face is intact, for all that her fingers are digging in along the center of her features, creating bloodless little punctures that seem to emit a faint, sickly amber glow of light. She is not faceless at all. She is Minerva McGonagall.

The likeness is utterly uncanny. She is younger than the stern witch of Hermione's childhood, but the dark coil of her hair, the structure of her bones, the keenness of her expression, the pursed moue of her lips – they flow seamlessly into her earliest memories of Hogwarts. "How? What does this mean?" She can't even articulate herself properly, but Snape answers anyway.

"She never explained this piece. She didn't explain any of her work, come to that, and I'm not sure I would have understood if she had. When I was young, 'Faceless Girl', in both her iterations, was one of my best friends. I used to visit her in the attic, stare at her for hours. I don't remember the first time I met her, she seemed to have always been there.

That alone inclined me positively towards Minerva, when I was a student. I recognized her straight off, as you can imagine. If my memory isn't playing tricks, I was actually a little sad when I discovered after my sorting that she was head of Gryffindor, and not my own house. It seemed like an existential unfairness, maybe, like the universe had gotten an important detail wrong. She'd been around my entire childhood… I think maybe I thought I owned her, had a right to her by dint of familiarity." He trails off, and chews absently at his lower lip.

"There was never any answer forthcoming during my schooldays. I suppose I must've eventually assumed this painting was just some meaningless likeness. One does grow out of one's imaginary friends, after all. But when I was leaving my apprenticeship – Dumbledore insisted he wanted me under his thumb at Hogwarts, so I finished early, to go and teach – anyway, the night I left, Uncle Tibs packed me off with a bottle of good brandy and the advice to be careful of McGonagall's right hook."

His eyebrows are up, his eyes a little too wide. He is inviting her to ask him, to resolve her perplexity.

So naturally: "I'll bite, what did _that_ mean?"

"I never found out, and she never did take a swing at me. Well, except for flinging some hexes, there at the end. And… Well, anyway. One good thing came of that last awful year – you'd be surprised just how much information you can get access to as Headmaster of Hogwarts. I think I solved a bit of this mystery, looking through hospital records." He pauses, smirking, teasing her. And God, he's going to leave her hanging now? He has lifted the first painting, evidently to return it to its shelf.

"Well? What did you find?" She knows her voice is impatient and she doesn't care, she's drowning in curiosity at this point. It's too weird a coincidence not to mean _something_.

He laughs. Again she's struck by the richness of this sound, how it washes over her and tickles like an electric current along the back of her neck. She would like to hear that sound right in her ear, feel it vibrate through the bones of her skull—she is aware that her lips are parted, her breath hitched. Snape doesn't notice her discomfiture; he's busy re-shelving the paintings.

He peels off the gloves and continues his story, "There was a very, hem, _interesting_ record of a time when Minerva McGonagall, Seventh Year Prefect, turned up to the Infirmary having sprained her wrist, split her knuckles, and broken three metacarpals. The date and time correlated quite neatly with my own mother having had her jaw dislocated and most of her front teeth caved in. The only other details I ever turned up were an indication that it took half a dozen follow-up visits to correct the resultant lisp."

He's still smirking, but she doesn't think it's the least bit humorous. Maybe he's misreading her expression, because "Think about it," he huffs, "What does the word 'faceless' sound like with a lisp?"

Light dawns, even as he's flicking the switches, turning them off. "So the password to your lab, then—"

"'Minerva McGonagall is faithless'," he intones solemnly. And then he grins, wide and fleeting, but she doesn't miss an instant of it. "And if you can't avoid saying that in her presence, I offer the same sage wisdom I myself received: watch out, because by all accounts, she has a wicked right hook."

Maybe the image of Headmistress McGonagall in a fistfight should be funny, but it somehow really isn't. "It's not untrue, though, is it?" she says seriously, "You were colleagues for nearly two decades; she had to have known you so much better than I ever did, and _I_ trusted you. I never truly gave up hope that you were on our side."

He takes this in with a look she can't fathom, but doesn't respond until he holds his front door open for her. "Thank you. For telling me that," he says, as she steps past him. "And, Miss Granger?" He holds her gaze for a heartbeat, two. "Good luck to you."

* * *

 _ **Author's Note:**_ _Hands up, who guessed—even a little—where this was going when I dropped_ The Faceless Girl _into the last chapter?_

 _…I think I am often writing fanfiction of my own headcanon, if you are wondering how or if_ Inkstains _is tied to_ Repast at the Table of Glorious Toxins. _It could be, if you wanted it to be, but that connection is not one I purposely set out to create, only that certain characters have realities in my head, and when I write parts of my headcanon into my fanfiction, that will necessarily show through._

 _Heartfelt thanks to all of you who are supporting my work with your kind and generous comments, and especially to the regulars who really keep this going. Love you all!_


	15. Drowning

**Part XV**

Her feet carry her down to the Lea.

The pavements here are particularly uneven, and she walks with her eyes cast down. It keeps the graffiti at the periphery of her vision, and it is somehow more threatening there, uncertain flashes of colour ripped free of context. The smell of the water cloys in her nose. It's not the green, algal scent she remembers, but muddy and a little sour. She skirts a rusted shopping trolley piled high with plastic bags. She should be looking for somewhere to apparate from; she has no business being here. And yet here she is. She raises her face into the light rain that is dimpling the murky water, scans the dilapidated warehouses opposite, muses on the barbed wire that tops the fence on the lock-up behind her. She'll have to walk on, this is too exposed.

It would be anonymous at night, though. She has no trouble understanding why no one had seen them dragging Alison Day's body along these pavements. Her footsteps slow, and she peers into the space between two boat hulls, as if she expects to see a decaying hand, or a seaweed swirl of hair. There is only a bit of rotting water weed, and a candy wrapper.

It's her mind that's the problem: she encourages it to deceive her. Although, she hasn't been the only one having trouble disentangling the present from fantasies of a past that might or might not have existed. What does it mean, that he can't seem to keep her straight in his head? She hasn't been Miss Granger for years, so just who is the intended recipient of his wish for luck?

Or is it that he sees her clearly, truly, for what she is? A shell-shocked schoolgirl pretending all these years to be something she is not? And he, ever the distant mentor, wishing her well as he washes his hands of her. She shivers. The rain is picking up. She should go home. There is nothing there, but there is nothing here, either.

Just the River Lea.

There is a pedestrian bridge spanning the water ahead. The metal handrails remind her of a palisade of blades, like you might find in a cheap plastic razor.

Across the river, two dark figures are attacking the back of a warehouse with spray cans. She watches their movements with detached curiosity. Their limbs have an arachnoid grace, choppy yet purposeful motions, each arc of their arms revealing a new tendril of image. When they intermittently duck to retrieve a different can from their respective duffle bags, it is as though they are bowing to one another in some strange courtship of creation. Pale forms begin to emerge from the dirty bricks; gaily-coloured fishes, belly-up along the wall. She rakes her wet hair out of her eyes, and shivers again. They sort of hurt, these pretty fish. They are floating, dying, deep inside her stomach.

"Hunh," says a thin voice, behind her.

She whirls, startled, but it is only an adolescent boy. He's dragging at the last of a cigarette, and watching the performance opposite, as she has been.

"They'll be swimming down in the water, when the sun shines." He drops his butt, grinds it out on the pavers, and continues on, a carefree looseness in his limbs.

She looks again at the fish, and mentally rotates them into a reflection across the Lea. When the sun shines. If the sun shines. But not today – the rain is getting heavier, and rendering the surface of the river into choppy wavelets.

Enough. She hunches her shoulders, and ducks into an alley; picks her way past sundry rubbish, fouled mattresses and rivulets of draining water. She concentrates on the image of her bathroom sink, complete with drowned knickers, and in an instant like a sucking breath, she is back there. She pulls the cord on the light, looks at her pale face in the silvering mirror. Her hair is quite as wet as when she got out of the shower. Did today even happen?

She pulls off her dripping cardigan, her wet tee, scrubs her shoulders with a towel, and binds her hair up.

What is the next thing to do?

She pulls the last of Snape's lab manuals from her satchel, spreads them out on her unmade bed. Sits cross-legged in front of them. Picks up a biro. Sets it down again. These books are not going to breathe new life into Professor Snape. Professor Snape is dead. He died on the floor of the Shrieking Shack, and whoever was reborn from antivenins and anticoagulants, from portkeys and blood replenishing potions – she is not going to find that person here. She is only ever going to have access to the ghost of him: spectral traces in old experiments, lingering dust motes in an abandoned laboratory.

She should probably investigate his final gift. Send an owl to Minerva McGonagall. _Is faithless_. So many people were. Was it everyone, from his perspective? How could it not have been?

He lives in spite of them, she is certain of it. _To_ spite them? Except that no one knows, so where is his vengeance? Perhaps he is taking to heart the adage that the best revenge is a life well-lived. He seems to be accomplishing that much.

She supposes she should be happy for him. But she can't be, because she doesn't know this man, with his hesitations and his crooked quicksilver smiles, the memory of his laugh - a memory which claws at some vital organ nestled against her spine. She can admit it, barely: she would rather have found him pining for Lily fucking Evans. Because at least Lily is dead.

Time passes. The grey light throws the little details of her life into relief, and then they fade back into shadows. Rain lashes against the panes of her window, and the amber streetlights transform droplets into clinging jewels. She hides from them beneath her blankets, turns away to face the wall.

Plant starts to droop alarmingly, and there is some kind of scum growing along the side of Mini-plant's glass. On one trip to the loo, she works up the energy to give them both some water. This act of mercy briefly inclines her toward the hypothesis that she can pull herself out of this state, and she contemplates fixing something to eat. The bread is gone moldy, though. She bins it, and then stands staring blankly into the glow of the refrigerator. Pickles? In the end, she closes the door, and retreats to her bed once more.

Morning. Or evening. Night. She should revise and resubmit her manuscript, but what is the point anymore? There are no further rewards to garner from these academic displays; she has found the answer to her postcard. And before that card had arrived in her postbox, turning her world upside down? Polyjuice equations were both distraction and salvation, an escape from lives playing out and ending before her eyes. An escape from her choices, a reassertion of self. But it was so long ago, and she doesn't remember who that self was.

She only knows the self she is. The self who lays here wooden, except for these odd hiccoughing sobs that start and stop without warning or reason.

The sheets are starting to stink, but she's too tired to do anything about it. She closes her eyes. Opens them again, to peer at the unstructured shape of what she knows to be a heap of dirty clothes, but in the darkness could be nearly anything. Nearly anything except two lovers, which is what she sees on the inside of her eyelids.

Maybe the creeping tendrils of plants trail across her skin, as she reclines upon the sofa. They would match her eyes.

Maybe he loses his page in a novel he's reading, as she kneels in front of him, putting that tongue stud to use.

Maybe he lifts her onto the kitchen island – it's about the same height the prep benches were.

But the worst things that play out in the shadows of her mind are the simplest: Maybe he pauses, on his way to fix their morning coffee, to simply brush his fingers through her hair.

She rallies, sometimes, and tells herself to be rational. Maddie O'Shea didn't know who the Faceless Girl was. Maddie O'Shea didn't even know he'd been a schoolteacher. She's just a muggle, and she doesn't know anything - not about their world, not about who he was. But then, she knows who he _is_. And maybe that's the way he wants it. A fresh start, a clean slate. What had he said, that he didn't want to owned?

The past owns people.

It owns her. Wholly.

* * *

 _ **Author's Note:** My profound thanks to all of you who have offered your support of my work - it means the world to me.  
_


	16. Commitment

**Part XVI**

Fucking hell. Someone is pounding at her door, and it feels as though she's only just fallen asleep. She pulls the greasy pillow over her head, and hopes they'll go away. It can't be the landlord, because she paid the rent, and she is very certain she hasn't been in bed a whole month. Although, she is a little fuzzy on just how long it _has_ been. Not too long. She's not starved. But she's through the caffeine-withdrawal headaches, so it's been at least a week.

The insistent pounding hasn't stopped.

Plant looks to be drooping again. Alright, maybe it's been a little more than a week.

She wishes they'd go away. She's doing exactly what she wants to, which is nothing. Nothing doesn't require company or an audience, nor a horrible incessant soundtrack of knuckles on wood.

"Fuck _off,_ " she begs, but knows they won't hear her.

The doorknob rattles, and there is a muffled masculine voice from the other side of the door.

Shit, maybe it is the landlord.

She lurches up out of bed, and the room swims when she bends to rummage for a dressing gown.

" _Alohomora_!" says the voice on the other side of the door, and Harry Potter finds her swaying and falling as she struggles into the sleeves and some semblance of decency.

"Hemione!" He's kneeling in front of her, eyes wide with concern, hand outstretched in midair, as if he wants to grasp at her but has just thought better of it. Maybe she's contagious.

"I'm alright, just dizzy. Not feeling well, been in bed." He voice sounds strange and harsh in her own ears. "I guess I stood up too fast."

"You look like hell."

"Thank you?"

"When's the last time you've eaten?" His eyes are narrowed, and now he does reach out to touch her, a hand on her shoulder as if he thinks she needs steadying.

But she's fine, and it hasn't been that long, so why is he asking? "Dunno. The other day, I guess."

"Right. About the same time you showered last? Christ, Hermione, I knew you had to have been upset about everything with Ron, but I didn't think you'd fall apart like _this_. You're supposed to be the one with sense!"

"Why? And why wasn't I informed of this rule?" She needs a drink of water. "Oh hell, where's my wand?"

Harry is looking steadily more alarmed, and his eyes are darting about so quickly now that it makes her dizzy. Dizzier.

" _Accio_ Hermione's wand! Here," he passes it to her, and she refills her water glass, drinks. Better.

"Why are you here? What's going on?" And do I need to sort it out? She pulls the front of her gown a little closer, and leans back against the bedframe.

"Nothing, never mind. It's… Oh, it's just something… It's not important right now."

She doesn't believe him. But she can choose to let it go, and that's the easiest thing. He's not her responsibility. No one is. And that's for the best, really. She closes her eyes, and tries to ignore the fact that he's poking about her flat. His footsteps tell her where he's going, which makes it harder to be entirely disinterested.

The refrigerator door creaks. He sighs through his nose. "OK. Hermione, this is… Let's, uh, d'you think you could manage a shower? I'll buy you lunch. Or maybe I can just order some takeaway, yeah?"

"Whatever you like." He's clearly not going to leave. Pity. She cracks one eye open. He's picking through her clothes.

" _Ablutio_ ," he mutters, poking his wand at a pair of denims.

"When did you learn household charms?" she asks idly, as he tosses them into her lap.

"I survived toddlers, are you forgetting?"

Maybe just a little. He must've figured out implacable persuasion in the course of that experience too, because the only other way he could've gotten her up off the floor and into the shower would've involved the Dark Arts.

"I don't hear the water running," he calls.

She growls wordlessly, cranks the tap, and ducks beneath the spray. It's miserably cold, but that's alright. This can be penance for how she's been behaving. By the time she gets the shampoo rinsed out of her hair, it's starting to warm up, but her teeth won't stop chattering. "D-d-d—downstairs, laundrette!" she answers, when Harry asks her if she does her wash the muggle way.

He's gone by the time she finishes drying off, and so are her dirty clothes and her bedding. Her satchel is turned out on the barren mattress and her coin purse is missing; she doubts he's taken to petty thievery, so there's little doubt he'll be back. He's forgotten to leave her a bra, but she decides it doesn't matter. She manages to get her knickers, denims, a jumper, and one sock on. The second sock is abruptly too much of a commitment, and when Harry returns she is lying across the foot of the mattress and contemplating a crack in the ceiling plaster.

"Right." Harry surveys her with his hands on his hips. "You can put that sock on or not, but we're going out to the Leaky."

"I need to give Plant some water, first."

"Sorry?" he looks perplexed for the first time since he's walked into her bedsit.

"The plant. On the window. Its name is Plant."

He barks out a laugh, and he looks younger, more like the Harry she knows of old, with the worry lines temporarily erased from his brow. "God, it's a good thing you didn't have kids. You and Ron would've named them Offspring and Chaser, probably."

"Probably," she agrees. She pulls herself up, and tries to thwart Harry's plan by lavishing some much-needed attention on her flatmates. Plant has a couple browned leaves; she twists them off as gently as she can manage. She doesn't apologize, because he's standing there watching her, but she is sorry. There was no excuse for _this_. The scum in Mini-plant's glass is distressing, too. She carries it into the bathroom. Her dried knickers are still lurking in the sink; she flicks them into the shower. Runs some water in the basin, and gently swishes Mini-plant's root ball. She should give it some soil, a proper pot.

Harry is not so easily dissuaded from his plan of action, and he drops her shoes beside her as she is minutely rearranging the plants on the windowsill so that they are quite precisely even. She sighs, acquiesces to the inevitable, and summons her sock.

It must be a weekend - Neville Longbottom is behind the bar of the Leaky. He beams when he sees them in the doorway, beckons them over, and offers to pull them a pint. "On the house!"

She tries to protest that it's too early, but apparently it's after 5 o'clock, and "Once you're a working dad, you get your pint in as soon as it's reasonable," Harry assures her. She's not a working dad, but this apparently does not matter.

They settle into a back corner with their glasses, and Neville pulls up a chair and joins them, once he's distributed bowls of thick stew and crusty rolls. Harry's stern glare cows her into tasting it, and she discovers that she is hungry after all. Neville and Harry fill the space up with speculations on Gryffindor's quidditch team; she gets the impression that money is changing hands somewhere in all this, which is new insight into why Ronald was always so keen, even after he gave up playing. But in spite of her long-held assumptions, it seems they actually can't talk about quidditch forever, and she is pulled into the conversation before she's quite ready.

"I still wish you'd joined us on Staff, Hermione. That Delgado bloke who took over from Slughorn… your lessons would've mopped the floor with him."

"Oh?" she manages.

"They're onto essential oils in the fourth year classes. I've had half the girls skulking around Greenhouse Five, nicking foliage."

"Well, we learned essential oils in fourth year. Later in the spring, though. There was at least a week."

"Yeah, but Delgado's been teaching them how to make _air fresheners_. Well, alright, aerosolized potions for regulating emotional energy in a room, but still. It seems, well, soft, y'know. And they keep traumatizing my plants, so they're clearly brewing in their dorms. Every time he tells me about his lesson plans, I just cringe in abject terror at what he's going to come up with next."

"It… it sounds like they're interested, at least. So he can't be all bad, and there's something to be said for learning the techniques. Aerosols are… well, you'd learn about boiling points, and van der Waal's forces, and polarity…"

"Well, _if_ they learn it. Potions classes seem to involve a lot more giggling than anything I remember."

"Still, I don't follow why that's terrifying."

"I just have this spooky sense, every time he tells me about his lessons. It's like cold fingers, and I can't help thinking old Snape's ghost is going to manifest in the Great Hall and haunt us forever. He's playing with fire, he is."

Harry is laughing, "Imagine!"

"Thanks, I have. Instant nightmares," Neville says, eyes wide, but he can't maintain the façade for long, and breaks into a chuckle of his own.

She, on the other hand, is thinking of the cheerful chaos in the Hive, and cannot even begin to crack a sick smile. "I'm sure Severus Snape is entirely happy wherever he is."

"Likely. Poor sod." Harry drains his glass, a casual dismissal in counterpoint to whatever genuine sentiment might have underlain his words.

Hannah is bringing them another round; Hermione holds her hand over her glass – she hasn't managed more than a third of it. Hannah smiles brightly at them all, and takes Hermione's empty bowl. "Nev, you aren't making fun of poor Javier again, are you? He's such a nice fellow!"

"He is, actually," Neville assures them as his wife returns to the bar. "He stayed with us here at the Leaky over hols, back when he first took the job. And the students aren't doing terribly on the OWLs or the NEWTs, and it's hitting the standards that matters in the long run. Too, he's been chatting up that Greengrass girl, d'you remember her, Daphne? That seems to be going well, so hopefully word spreads back to Hogwarts, and we can return to some semblance of sanity again."

"The notion of girls mooning over the potions professor breaks my brain." Harry mimes a retch.

"Some of the boys, too, mate. He's like Lockhart, only, y'know, baseline competent. And he's got an accent, and y'know how birds are with accents." Neville quaffs his beer, a knowing man of the world.

Harry nods seriously.

Perhaps the Encyclopedia of Manliness has a whole entry for 'how birds are'. "Really," she says in her driest tone.

"Well not you, Hermione, but you're not normal, eh?"

"Thanks-I-think. Keep digging, I'm sure it'll be good for you."

As if on some unspoken cue, they raise their hands in mock-surrender. She rolls her eyes and laughs, and it's almost strange to feel a real smile on her face. She realises she misses uncomplicated afternoons with the boys. Neville isn't Ronald, of course, but Ronald isn't who he used to be, so that's all for the best. Or maybe she isn't who she used to be. Or maybe none of them were ever who they thought each other were. How did their friendships work, then? Was it just mutual delusion?

"It's really good to see you again, Hermione. We were actually talking about you a couple weeks back, McGonagall and I, how we'd both lost track of you." Neville's open smile is perfectly earnest. "You should come up to the school, drop in on her for tea. She'd love that."

"'Love' might be a little strong for it. She made it, uh, clear to me, that she was disappointed I didn't take the advanced transfig scholarship to Beauxbatons."

"Well, that's just Minerva. Don't take _that_ to heart. I can tell you for a fact she was put out you didn't apply for Slughorn's job. You'd have been great - I can't even begin to follow your papers, but Delgado nearly lost his mind when he found out I was friends with you, so clearly you're amazing."

Whoever this Delgado is. "I never gave it any thought, teaching at Hogwarts. I don't think Ronald would've been at all keen. And well, some of us deal with the past by facing it head on, and some of us deal with it by walking into a different kind of future." She nods firmly, and hopes that he will drop the matter. She doesn't want to think about might-haves and should-haves. She especially doesn't want to think about Ronald, but now she can't get him out of her head, how his heels would become heavy and his brow furrowed with silent rage whenever she got her preprints or reviews back.

"Still, you should come up to the school sometime. I've been doing amazing things with the grounds, I'd love to show you." Neville has that hopeful wheedling tone, and Harry is nodding along with him. She suspects conspiracy. Which… is slightly adorable, and gives her a warm little tingle. She wonders if Harry's told him about her and Ronald. Or, rather that there isn't a 'her and Ronald' anymore.

But she's not-thinking about that. Which only leaves the other thing she's not-thinking about. "I might do, actually. I, uh, I found something in one of my books. One of Professor Snape's books, I mean. It looks like it's a password, to his private laboratory maybe."

"Really?" Neville practically bounces up. "We've tried everything short of blasting the door!"

"It's still intact, you mean?" She feels cold and queasy all of a sudden.

"With all the bodies and everything, most likely. No one's ever been able to get in. It drives Javier demented. That fixes it, you've just _got_ to come up!"

"A-alright. I'll send McGonagall an owl about it." She isn't sure she wants to do any such thing, but it stops Neville hauling her off to Scotland that very instant.

Of course, she knows she's gained only a brief reprieve, so she actually does head out the next morning to spread her things across her usual table in the café. Laszlo seems delighted to see her again, and exclaims loudly over how poorly she's looking. She hadn't thought it was all that bad -– her face is a bit pinched and her colour isn't good - but he puts two marzipans on the edge of her saucer and insists upon bringing her a plum dumpling as well.

It takes her most of the day, and seven separate drafts, but she finally manages to pen a letter to Hogwarts' Headmistress. She even braves Diagon Alley, and posts it.

It's a little easier the next day, and the day after that. She settles back into a routine: long walks in which she carefully thinks about nothing whatsoever, followed by afternoons in the café, where she pulls out her resubmission and even manages to work on it sometimes. She owes it to Tibs, to finish this. She needs to ignore whatever game he might be playing with his nephew, and focus on the fact that he's always helped her. She has no objective way of reckoning up how much she's learned in the course of revisions, nor how many of her papers have been vastly improved by his careful selection of reviewers. He has been her mentor as surely as Severus Snape ever was, and she can commit to finishing at least this last paper.

She gets two owls, later that week. The first is from McGonagall. It's practically effusive by the Headmistress' starchy standards: she's _delighted to hear from_ her, and _very much looking forward to seeing_ her again, and she _simply must come, and I shan't take no for an answer. I shall be looking for you at the weekend, Ms. Granger._ The second owl also brings post that's making plans for her. It's a note from Ronald. It's very short, just a single question. _Will you be in, the evening of the 14_ _th_ _?_ She grips the parchment so hard that it actually rips. She sends the owl back into the night with her reply. _Yes_.

She lays in bed sleepless for hours. She is trying to remember what he felt like, entering her. And it seems somehow terrible to her that she can't recall this, because it hasn't really been that long. She does remember his arms, though, and laying with her face against his chest, coarse copper curls tickling her cheek. And maybe that's enough?

* * *

 _ **Author's Note:**_ _As a heads-up, we may be entering into hiatus territory. I have some [potentially bleak] personal stuff going on this week._


	17. Making Efforts

**Part XVII**

Faint echoes of church bells are pealing out across the frosty morning. Moor grasses with their winter-bleached seed heads and brown tussocks of heather poke up through the few inches of snow, which have blown up into little drifts across the lane. The walk between Hogsmeade and the school is as picturesque as it always was; the sky here is sharp and clear, and the sun is spreading, golden, across the surrounding hilltops. Away behind her, towering firs are picked out in hoarfrost, and the village is still nestled in blue shadows. She pulls her scarf up a little higher – the wind is making her cheeks sting a bit – and raps smartly at the imposing wrought iron gates.

"State yer business," growls one of the winged hogs, from its pedestal above the gate.

"Hermione Granger, to see Headmistress McGonagall."

A gate swings open obligingly, just enough to walk through, and then slams back in place once she's passed.

Neville surely has been to work on the grounds. There are countless new topiaries and beds, and the south slope at the castle's foot has been utterly transformed. In their day, it had just been a grassy expanse; once the lake had frozen hard enough to support their weights, they'd gone sledding down it, careening madly across the ice, until that unfortunate incident with the Sixth Year Hufflepuffs – it was a miracle none of them had drowned, really. Whether the moratorium on sledding had been enforceable or not, there's clearly no longer any need for it – Neville's transformed the entire thing into a cascade. It's frozen, now, but someone has worked charms upon the ice, and gleaming sculptures are erupting along the margin of the lake. She actually claps her hands at the beauty of it. God, she has missed this place.

Smoke is curling up from Hagrid's, and there's the Whomping Willow, on the distant shore of the lake. There's a team out on the pitch; their shouts echo through the morning, joyous like the flocks of tits that are squabbling at feeders along the drive. The last remnants of the castle's lazy Sunday brunch will still be spread out in the Great Hall. The library will be cozy, and the sun will be falling _just_ _so_ through the high windows, making glowing tapestries of colour across the books in the restricted section.

Her eyes smart, and she sniffs, but that's just because the wind is making her nose drip.

Soon she's passing through familiar halls, and it nearly hurts to see how little has changed from her brightest memories. The paintings are the same, mostly, and the suits of armor gleam. There aren't any scorch marks from stray hexes marring the stone walls. The glimpse she catches of the Great Hall is nothing like the carnage that still lives in her nightmares. Maybe she was wrong, when she told Neville that she wasn't interested in facing the past. Perhaps she needed to see this place, to know that life goes on. A swarm of students rushes past, Gryffindors. They're so tiny! Their faces are so smooth and perfect, their gaits so carefree. Surely _they'd_ never been that young, that innocent.

Professor Flitwick catches her loitering. He's all smiles and handshakes, he's missed her terribly, and so happy to see she's well. She assures him that the feeling is mutual, and allows herself to be swept up to McGonagall's office.

"Mrs. Weasley, it's so wonderful to see you again!"

"Please, Professor, won't you call me Hermione?" She begs, once the Headmistress has released her from her hard embrace. It feels wrong to answer to 'Mrs. Weasley'. She should do something towards canceling those divorce proceedings; maybe that will help her conscience.

"Oh, of course, of course. Hermione. You didn't walk up? You must be frozen stiff, let's get a cup of tea in you, straight off!"

She's divested of her cloak and chivvied into one of the plush armchairs with all haste. Harry had always described this room as being filled with astronomical models and whirling contraptions, but if it was so in Dumbledore's day, it is no longer. McGonagall's taste runs to books, and understated luxury. Every bit of exposed wood is elegantly carved, with motifs running to roses, thistles and swords. There are tapestries, too, and she has no doubt they are ancient and authentic, for they are worn, a bit shabby in places, and lack the brilliance of the spelled wall hangings elsewhere in the castle. They are somehow not at odds with the lighting, which is provided by chandeliers of stag antlers that hold pulsating orbs of golden light within their upturned tines.

Probably the only decorative continuity are the portraits of the previous Headmasters. She waves to Dumbledore, who has looked up from his book. He gives her a smile and a nod, and goes back to his reading.

What did this room look like, when Professor Snape inhabited it? Dark, likely. Quiet. Probably he didn't even remove Dumbledore's things. Ginny would know, she's snuck in here once, hadn't she? Perhaps she'll ask sometime. But she highly doubts that it would have looked much at all like the verdant, precise jungle hidden in Hackney Wick.

McGonagall provisions her with strong tea and shortbread, then snaps her wand at the nearest grate. Flames burst into existence, merrily crackling and faintly redolent of peat. "Now, then, Hermione! You must catch me up on what you three have been doing!"

For her own part, there's little to say, and she brushes past her theoretical work to wax on Harry and Ginny's brood. The Headmistress laughs over Jamie's latest exploits, and seems familiar with several of Harry's favourite tales; too, she seems pleased that Ronald is settling in with the Aurors so well. "I despaired of that boy, you know. He had a jealous streak, a bit of petulance that none of the other Weasley boys did. It's good to hear he's come into his own."

This revelation is fairly startling. She rattles her teacup in setting it back in its saucer. Perhaps she could…? But no:

"Oh, I don't mean anything by it, you could always see he had a heart of gold. Just, it can't have been easy, being the youngest boy."

"No," she agrees. "But Molly and Arthur have always cheered on all their children. And now all the grandchildren, too." She is almost deflated, because for a moment, she had thought she might have found a confidante in her favourite teacher. Better to direct the conversation back to harmless channels.

"Goodness, when I think of how that family's grown – we'll have an entire form of Gryffindor Weasleys, in a couple years!" She does not seem put out at this prospect, quite the opposite, in fact. "But you haven't hiked all the way up here just to blether, have you? You mentioned wanting to poke about the castle, in the owl you sent."

"Yes. I've… found something, I think it might be a password. Probably to the private laboratory that Professor Snape kept. It was written in one of his books, you know that I have them?"

"Yes, I had heard. It still seems so profoundly strange that he would have done that," McGonagall says slowly, "Left _you_ his books."

She can't help bristling; the number of times she's heard some variant of this have left their mark. "Why is that so strange." It's a challenge, not a question.

"I should have thought he would have left them to Tiberius, is all. Not to some Gryffindor girl."

Ah yes. She'd momentarily forgotten that Minerva McGonagall – _is faithless_ – probably knows Tibs. "Oh. Tiberius Prince, do you mean? I hadn't imagined – was he related to Dr. Prince, then?" she asks, as innocently as she knows how.

McGonagall shoots her a sharp look. "Yes. And he even did an apprenticeship with Tiberius, so it has always struck me badly. I have wondered…"

"Yes?" She has the distinct sense that she might be poking a wasp nest.

McGonagall purses her lips tight. "Never mind." She stands, to pluck the floo jar from the mantle. The flames turn green. "Professor Delgado, when you are able, I would appreciate your coming by my office."

A disembodied voice floats back. "Of course, Headmistress."

But Hermione can't leave things well enough alone. "Please, Professor. What did you mean to ask?"

McGonagall emits a little snort of what can only be anger or extreme distaste. "It gives me no pleasure, to ask, Mrs. Weasley, but I have wondered if… if Professor Snape ever behaved indelicately towards you."

She can feel her eyes growing wide. It's like being hit with a bludger, maybe. Some hard, solid object, right in the center of her skull. "You… you can't honestly think… No! God, no, of course not." This has consumed all of her oxygen and she finds she needs to grip the carved arm of the chair, to steady herself while she draws breath for another round of assertions and explanations. "Not at all. He only, I think he knew I enjoyed potions, that's all. It surprised me, honestly, that he left me the books. I… He used to direct me towards citations, sometimes, leave a note or two on my papers. If I'd missed something, or else just pointing out primary literature that dealt with the topic. That's all." It's even mostly the truth. She doesn't feel better for having expressed it. There is no redemption in this confession, because McGonagall still looks suspicious.

"It just struck me as out of character," she finally responds.

"Perhaps he didn't get on with Dr. Prince. Or maybe it was just a bad joke - I've thought so."

"Perhaps," McGonagall concedes, "Severus and I were never really close, so I suppose I wouldn't know. He did leave his apprenticeship early; it's possible there was bad blood." She seems to like this theory, and it is miles above the one she previously held, from Hermione's perspective. "And it would probably annoy Tiberius to have a muggleborn demonstrating proficiency in his own fiefdom."

She feels it like an icy finger, a quivering chill in her bowels. "I… I never got the impression that Dr. Prince was… particularly biased in that regard." Please no, please no. She'd worked _so hard_.

McGonagall actually flushes red, and sits back down a little too quickly. "Lord, no. No, Hermione, I didn't mean to imply _that_. No, for whatever faults he has, I sincerely doubt Tiberius was ever… I only meant, your own success in apposition to Severus, who… well, I know Tiberius once held great hopes for him."

You could fill half the Great Hall with whatever McGonagall isn't telling her in all this spluttering. But she has no opportunity to press her on the subject, because Javier Delgado chooses that instant to enter the Headmistress' office.

He's beautiful. She'd had no idea that the word could apply to a man, but he's more than simply handsome, and the English language is deficient of any other adjective that could possibly do him justice. He has startling blue eyes framed in sooty lashes, a slightly patrician nose that would have looked at home on any marble statue, shapely brows, and full lips that on a woman could be accused of pouting. His cheekbones are high and graceful, and the three-day stubble darkening his jaw simply _has_ to be deliberate, it's so perfectly symmetrical. His hair falls in perfect dark curls to his crisp collar.

She swallows hard, and feels suddenly very dowdy.

"Professor Delgado, excellent. This is Mrs. Weasley, she –"

"Ah, but Neville he has told me that you are coming!" Delgado sweeps forward and grasps her hand. "It is my honour to meet with you! For surely, it is a rare day, to have such a genius descend upon us here." He presses those perfect lips to the back of her fingers and she experiences it as a visceral jolt.

"Professor Delgado, it's… it's nice to meet you, too," she manages to murmur.

"Javier, you must call me Javier." He gives her a roguish wink, and she begins to fathom why Neville considers him a problem.

But what can she say, except, "You'll call me Hermione, then?"

"It would be my pleasure." The way he stresses the word does alarming tingling things to her spinal cord. Imagine if Professor Snape had had even an ounce of this physical appeal? She'd have never escaped Potions without drenching her knickers. Her brain is suddenly very hard-pressed to recall any favourite fantasies of his hooked nose against her breasts.

McGonagall to the rescue: "Javier, perhaps you would be kind enough to allow us access to your quarters. _Mrs._ _Weasley_ thinks she knows the password to the wards Snape set on his private lab."

"But of course, of course," he flourishes for them to precede him into the Floo, which McGonagall has reactivated.

He doesn't have bookcases, is the first thing she notices. It makes it easier not to melt beneath the light pressure of his fingers at the small of her back, as he quietly implores her to "Come with me, the door it is over here."

It is very definitely a door, and of course it doesn't open. "I suppose it's impervious to any unlocking charms?"

"Quite." McGonagall confirms what Neville had told her. "You can get a rather nasty concussion from the backlash. We've tried everything, but it seems it won't open except with the proper password. Most spells wind down with their caster's death, but not all of them. Trust Severus Snape to have known a few exceptions to the general rule."

But distrust Severus Snape in any other regard, apparently. "If I'm right, well, it's a bit rude. Well, a lot rude." She doesn't _really_ believe what Snape's told her, but why would he lie? Something had to have happened, and McGonagall seems to have known _Tiberius_.

"Hermione, my dear girl, I have taught school for half a century and more. Nothing will startle me at this point."

We'll see, she thinks, and says to the door, "Minerva McGonagall is faithless."

It swings open, with just the faintest of creaks.

"Really." McGonagall's tone is curiously flat. Hermione glances over her shoulder at the Headmistress, and sees that her lips are tight, and her colour a little grey. But she hasn't got time for any more observations, because Delgado is pushing past her and into the room.

"Hold on a moment." She pushes her arm out and physically halts him. "From what I read, Professor Snape's last experiments should still be here. It's pertinent to something I'm working on, and I should very much like to catalogue everything."

He steps back, and bows his head in acquiescence, although she catches something of his expression that makes her think he's annoyed. It's something in the pull of his lips, but it's gone before she can identify it properly.

"That's certainly fair enough," McGonagall weighs in.

Good, because she'd been worried McGonagall mightn't be her ally after hearing _that_. Not that she should be blamed for Snape's sense of humor, but still. They're easy words to misinterpret, and the actual interpretation isn't all that flattering either, whatever that painting means. She'll go for broke, because nothing ventured, nothing gained. "Too, I would like to lay claim to the equipment in here."

"But surely it belongs to the school, yes?" Delgado's expressive brows have climbed his forehead.

"In fact, I can find proof of purchase for everything in this room, Professor Snape kept very meticulous records of his private investments." They're positively anal records, and she knows exactly how many treasures he hid away in here.

"While I can't dispute that Professor Snape spent his own monies on his equipment, I should think," Ah, there's the aspersion in McGonagall's tone, it just took a while for her to catch up, "I should _think_ that his next of kin would have best right to his belongings."

"In fact, I fully intend to apprise Dr. Prince of all of this, and to make my request of him," she counters, calmly. "It was my thought to remove these effects – I can give you an itemization – and turn them over to Dr. Prince, but if you would prefer I solicit his agreement first, I can certainly come back."

A cloud seems to have passed over McGonagall's face, at her mention of Tibs. It's not her mystery, she reminds herself.

McGonagall shakes herself, minutely, and comes to a decision. "Very well. An itemization will suffice. Javier, perhaps Mrs. Weasley will like your assistance."

Perhaps Mrs. Weasley would like someone looming over her shoulder, to ensure she's not doing anything untoward? She doesn't think she's wrong in this interpretation, and it hurts a little. Too, she'd have rather discovered more facets of the mysterious Professor Snape without an audience. How is she going to replenish her supply of daydream material with this dandy swanning through her field of view? She doesn't quite sigh, but it's a near thing.

Well, she'll put him to work. She extracts the lists she'd copied from the lab manuals, and hands them to her new assistant. "When I find things, tick them off. Number three cauldron, pewter, serial number eight-seven-four-eight-twenty-two, alpha epsilon. Got it? Next one, number seven cauldron, platinum…"

She's exhausted by the time they're done. She doesn't let him stop for dinner, either. If she has to suffer his presence, he has to suffer her determination to get this job done in one go. He actually goes off on a whinge, and she tartly informs him that she knows for a fact that the kitchens are open all night.

Curiously enough, he doesn't offer to walk her down to the gates.

Hagrid does, though, and it's good to see him again. He doesn't make her rattle on about Harry and Ronald, only remarks that she's looking tired. She is, she agrees. It's been a long day. She tells him, without his asking, about Professor Snape's laboratory. She caresses her satchel possessively as she talks. It's what she has, now.

"'Spect Professor Snape woulda been happy, like, ter see how yeh've got on. He never suffered dunderheads, he liked to tell us. But yeh could see he was also right proud of the smart ones, even if he never said."

She quirks him a sad smile, in the darkness. "Thanks, Hagrid." She can see it now, people will have been putting all sorts of kind and conciliatory words in Snape's mouth. Rewriting his sarcasm and cruelty, into something that will better fit the narrative Harry shouted at Riddle, not half a mile from here. Ah well.

She bids Hagrid goodnight at the gate, and reassembles her molecules in London, where it is drizzling down. Again. She sets the satchel aside, she'll deal with it tomorrow. Or the next day. Some day. She hasn't got space to lay any of it out, but sure, maybe someday. She told him she would.

It hasn't all been in vain, her journey up to Hogwarts. She has learned two important things: it doesn't hurt the way she thought it would, and her genitals are not, after all, solely fixated on Severus Snape. If she can appreciate Delgado, who is little more to her than a pretty face, surely she can appreciate her husband. They fought a war together. They have been each other's best friends for years. They have history. And that has meaning.

Come morning, she takes herself off to Diagon Alley. She has thought of a solution for _dowdy_.

The window display at Malkin's strikes her as overdone. The mannequin appears to be in drunken repose, champagne glass transfixed in the act of rolling off her anonymous fingers. The filmy dress robes on display are pooled up her white thigh. You can't tell anything at all about their cut, except that garters are apparently optional. She pulls a sneer, and considers apparating down to the river after all. But no, she's committed to Diagon Alley for her morning ramble. And at least it's not busy. She's getting drenched standing here in the street, even with the umbrella charm, which does nothing for the rain that the wind sweeps up under its canopy of influence. She scowls again at the mannequin and resolutely steps into the shop. A tinkling chime announces her entrance.

The younger one, Miss Malkin, is folding scarves, and smiles brightly. "Good morning, love!"

Hermione nods civilly, and wonders how she can escape personalized attention.

"Just in for a snoop, or is there something I can help you find?"

"Just looking." She smiles tightly, but then efficiency strikes her as the better idea, "Actually, I need something for St. Valentine's. Nothing over the top, just, y'know, nice. More on the casual side. Black."

"Heavens, no, not black, my dear! Plum, or aubergine, I think, with your colouring. Come with me!" She abandons the scarves, and sweeps off into the depths of the shop.

Hermione takes a deep breath, and acquiesces to what has just become inevitable. This is stupid, she tells herself firmly, as Malkin retrieves one filmy creation after another. She doesn't need anything _romantic_ , just something dressier than her usual plain black robes. She tries in vain to impress this upon the woman, but Malkin merely tuts and shoos her into the changing room.

Each one seems worse than the last. At least puffed sleeves are gone, and instead serenely draping trumpets are in this year. Outer robes have commensurately lost their sleeves entirely, but are now buckling at the waist with immense jewelled pins, instead of falling open to display a corset and skirt or cotehardie. In fact, aside from colourful embroidered sleeves, inner robes have gone rather plain – the fabric leans to sheers or silk, but the cuts are simple and the effect is more evocative of undergarments than dresses. Most are lacing at the front, which completes the resemblance.

The majority of the robes Malkin brings her will clash horribly with anything Ronald might wear. She finally settles upon a dark pewter inner robe in rough silk. The sleeves are even livable; their scattering of embroidered silver ivy is subtle in comparison to the glimmer and sparkle of crystals adorning several other contenders. "Sedate, please!" she keeps stressing, but that word doesn't have any meaning in a shop like this.

She finally bullies Malkin into giving up on the evening wear section when it comes to the outer robe. Just a business robe, in a colour verging more on Tyrian purple than aubergine. Malkin clucks her tongue, but Hermione quite likes the effect. It's professional, but stylish. She can justify buying this setup, because perhaps she'll finally go to a Guild meeting this year, and she should have something nice to wear. She does let Malkin talk her into a pin that is more ornate than she would normally choose, but at least it's not a dense shield of glitter. The filigreed leaves are close enough to those on the sleeves that she has to agree it'll look superb.

Ronald will like it. He's always said that he enjoys showing her off when she's kitted out like a proper witch. She'd gone off in a harangue, of course. She _is_ a proper witch, and it shouldn't matter what she wears. And she isn't a possession, for him to _show off_.

But she can make an exception for once. He has done things for her, put up with things he'd rather not have. Even if he hasn't done it cheerfully, he has still done it. Nothing of value comes without some effort, and it is past time she herself made some.


	18. Bodies Disinterred

**_Author's Note:_** _This chapter is your reward, m'dears, for having stuck with this story. Our definitions for the word 'reward' may differ._

* * *

 **Part XVIII** _  
_

She has new bedtime rituals.

Instead of lying in the dark and imagining what she can't have, envisioning pale limbs entwined together, dark hair tangled with flame, green eyes rolling back and lips parting as those long fingers delve into intimate places… Instead of imagining these things that knot her guts in spite and loathing, and make her want to cry and scream and break things and rip things and… And, well, her pillow can only take so much abuse, so many tears. So instead of indulging these childish antics, she is tending to her immortal soul.

Or to her marriage, anyway.

She dwells on memories of his rough, calloused fingers, how they scratched against her tissues, how his thumb always ground down a little too hard. But it still worked. It just… took a little longer. Her body doesn't really care what her brain is doing, and she'd curated an abundance of naughtier, more aggressive scenarios to play out while he thrust into her, grunting and sweating. But she's not allowed to think of those anymore.

She refocuses on things she does recall, real things. The sound of his balls slapping, wet, against her quim. The ache in the ligaments of her groin, as he held her legs wide. No, she's doing this wrong again. How about the feeling of his fingers curving into the swell of her arse, as he lifts her hips against him, the head of his cock jolting into that spot that almost makes her feel like she has to wee. Damn it.

She tries again. The feel of stiff, wiry hairs, gliding against her clit as he pushes into her. The texture of loose, silky skin, curiously mobile atop the pulsing vessels that ridge his cock. The smell of his ejaculate. The salty, bitter taste of it on her lips. The way he'd tugged her hair as she teased the slit in his glans. The way that had hurt, how it had brought tears to her eyes.

Fuck.

Well, at least she can't say she doesn't remember anything.

And there _have_ been some good things. The attentive way he'd suckled her breasts, licking her nipples into buds. The tickling marathons that had turned into panting kisses – and he'd learned to do _that_ right, just enough pressure, and his tongue promising, hinting, at the penetration he longed to perpetrate upon her, a splendid teasing prelude, even if the main show was… Feeling his arms around her in the aftermath. Being able to fall into dreamless sleep, knowing that his body was between her and the world. The possessive way he'd traced her curves, caressed her hip. Mine. It was nice to be certain she was truly wanted.

Nights pass. In the daylight, it's easier. She drags her memories along with her into the shower, how he'd soaped her shoulders and teasingly pinched her bum. How they'd laughed and splashed water at each other. And then there's breakfast, and she reminds herself that he'd often fix her coffee before preparing his tea, that he'd thank her if she cooked, and that he'd do the washing up more often than not.

Too, there could be spirited conversations over the daily news. The _Prophet_ was always good, and sometimes he'd ask her to explain something in the muggle paper. He did try, she couldn't fault him there. He tried where he was able.

Heading off to the café is a relief, though. She can let her guard down, and just focus on the work in front of her. It's calming: rephrasing sentences, drafting new paragraphs, flipping through lab manuals in an attempt to report these experiments in a way that is compatible with publication. She's already figured out how to incorporate the dissolution analyses he'd done. They're not perfect, but it's certainly a proof-of-concept. It would be nice to include some indication that the techniques actually _will_ work with potions, but there just isn't the requisite experimental evidence to demonstrate it. But this alone isn't standing in the way of resubmission.

The trouble, she can admit, isn't with the lab manuals, isn't with the tabulations of experimental results.

The trouble is with her attention span. This isn't riveting her the way it used to, and Ronald keeps intruding at the edges of her thoughts. Ronald, sweaty from playing quidditch with his nieces and nephews. Ronald, untangling yet another clump of her hair from the bathtub drain. Ronald, pushing her on the old wooden swing at the Burrow. Ronald, digging a grave for poor Crooks.

She's staring out the window again, idly watching as occasional muggles hurry past the soft folds of old-fashioned lace, anonymous and unidentifiable, shrouded in their umbrellas and their raincoats. It was only grey and misty when she'd set out this morning, but it's picking up with a vengeance, now. She observes droplets coalescing upon the glass, melding, growing. Gravity finally wins out against surface tension, and they invariably give way to runnels down the pane.

A fresh cup of coffee is intruding upon her attention, she sees it from the corner of her eye. She looks up to thank Laszlo for once again going out of his way, but it isn't the mustachioed Hungarian who is looming over her table. It's Severus Snape.

He has a dripping umbrella hooked over one arm, and a coffee cup of his own in his off hand. Buttoned up behind a long double-breasted coat, he looks so like the Professor Snape of old that her heart nearly stops.

"Do you mind if I join you? There aren't any other seats free."

He's lost his mind, evidently, because there are three tables in the immediate vicinity that are entirely devoid of occupants. "Be my guest." She gestures at the chair opposite; he's already pulling it out.

"Do you eat, these days? And if so, would you care for an extra candy, because I confess I'm not much for sweets." He plucks the marzipan from the edge of his own saucer, and sets it on hers when she nods, still shaken. "Are you still working on time-release coatings? I should have thought you'd sent that back to Uncle Tibs by now."

"Yes, er, it's taking me longer than expected." She can manage words, if only just barely. "Too, I wasn't feeling well, last week."

"Sleeping aids will help with some of that," he says, his eyes holding hers for such a long beat that she has to look away, look down. She knows legilimency doesn't work like that, but still.

For good measure, she also shrugs off his suggestion, then takes a sip of coffee to give herself time to regroup, and to figure out how to redirect his attention back into safe channels. "I'm going to incorporate the coatings you developed, and the mock-digestion trials – with the dye capsules - that you performed. Because I do want to include you on this paper, it was your idea first."

"Suit yourself. It's one of those social niceties: Posthumous contributors ought to keep their opinions to themselves."

What is that supposed to mean? She repeats the question aloud.

"Oh, nothing, really. Noise. This is excellent coffee, by the way. I see why you haunt this place. Well, not quite nothing, but only a suggestion. Chiefly, good papers are finished papers, and excellent papers are published papers. And you shouldn't fuss with it endlessly, or you'll accomplish neither. But I didn't actually come here to offer you unsolicited advice."

"Oh?" Her tone is perhaps a bit more wary than she'd intended.

He favours her with a wry grimace. "No. I'm playing least underfoot, which is a more comfortable way of phrasing the fact I've been forced out of my own home."

She raises her eyebrows, continues to sip her coffee. He takes it for what it is, an invitation to continue. "With any luck, talks are proceeding to disarmament. At the very least, there finally _are_ talks. Between Martin and O'Shea. God knows what started it all, anymore, but it's like any of the spats this lot have, it'll have been something abstract and philosophical. And frankly, I did my tour of duty in conflict resolution, thanks kindly."

She's getting the picture now, she thinks. "Martin is the one with the DNA barcodes, the exhibit of extinct species?"

He nods. "They were planning an exhibit together, a year ago."

"I… I got the sense they had artistic differences."

"Well, they've certainly developed them since. Here's hoping they hash out an armistice, though, because I'd like to go home sometime. In the interim, though… It's clear enough to me that you're not actually working on this anymore today. How do you fancy coming along on a walk? And before you ask, yes I have got friends. But I've decided you can be one of them, so deal with it." He sniffs, pushes his hair back, and turns away to observe something on the far wall that is apparently quite fascinating.

How do his words do this? She feels a smile tugging up the corners of her mouth, but at the same time, it's as though her chest has collapsed in upon itself. "Do you really mean that?" It escapes her in a breathless little croak.

"Of course not. I should think that in all the years you've known me, I've made it quite clear that I frequently waste my breath saying things I don't intend to." He's positively stroppy now, and she can't help but giggle, despite the way her eyes have gone inexplicably blurry.

She reaches across the table, to press her fingers to the edge of his coat sleeve. "Thank you," she whispers, "I'd consider it an honour to be your friend."

He gazes down at her hand, and his lips do a funny little quirking thing, not anything you could mistake for a smile. "Well," he says after a moment, "Typically, then, when a friend asks if you want to go for a jaunt in a rainstorm, you respond in the affirmative. So?"

She laughs outright, and it feels like wings beating, lifting her up. "Yes, then! Let me pack my things away." It's the work of a few minutes, to tidy her papers and books, finish draining her cup, and twist the marzipans into a paper napkin. But it hasn't been long enough to dampen the grin that's fighting to break through her control. She releases it, finally, when she's following him out of the café. She turns to give Laszlo a little wave, and he beams back at her, clearly amused by her expression. She's got it out of her system by the time Snape turns to her, and she can behave normally towards him again. "Did you have any place in particular in mind? To walk?"

"Have you got an Official London?"

"The apparition guide?" It's a yearly publication of the Ministry's officially maintained apparition points, with pictorial references.

He nods. "Can't apparate without a wand. It's just more energy than can be controlled at once. Or, in theory, anyway, and I'd rather not risk splinching, testing it out."

But then… No, she sees what he's getting at. "I could do it, and take you side-along, you mean."

"If you know where you're going, yes."

Fair enough. She would certainly hesitate in trusting other people to apparate her, too. "I do have one. An Official. At home, though. I could go and fetch it?"

He presses his umbrella upon her, which is only good sense, because she can't very well use a charm in the midst of muggle London. She leaves him leaning against the wall, beneath the café's awning. "Back in a jiffy!" She assures him.

She fairly skips around the corner, to duck behind a dustbin, and pop back into her apartment. She drops the umbrella, scrambles to her trunk, and roots through the detritus. Somewhere… There! It's last year's, but the new editions come out in March, so the points should all still work. It's a bit battered up – Ronald is never careful with books, and he never could be bothered to buy his own, just nicks hers all the time. Ronald. She glances up, from where she's kneeling on the floor. Her new dress robes are hanging above her, she'd hooked them on the coat tree.

What is she doing? What is he doing?

She startles, when the apparition guide clunks onto the floor. It's fallen from her fingers. She pulls away from it, as though suddenly realising that it's something dangerous.

What if she just stays here? It would be for the best. She reminds herself of the way Maddie O'Shea had opened the door. This helps, and she even goes so far as to take her coat off, to unpack her papers. She tastes one of the marzipans, and stops herself from sniffling with a furious glare that she directs at the guide, still splayed out on the floor, abandoned.

But she has his umbrella. And he can't apparate home the way she can, so he'll get soaked straight through and what if he catches his death of cold? She's grasping, now, at reasons to go back, against all her better judgement. Well, here's one: he said he'd decided that she was a friend. So what if she didn't quite think that was how you were supposed to do it – there weren't any trolls around for them to battle together, and that was how she'd established friendships before. Well then. They'd agreed to be friends. And friends didn't steal each other's umbrellas, no matter how fucked up their respective lives were.

She pulls her coat back on, grabs Snape's umbrella and her own, and finally scoops up the Official London before she can think better of this madness. She can't be sure the dustbin will be as safe to apparate to as it was to disapparate from, so it's several minutes of fast walking before she's back at the café. He's still there, leaning idly against the wall as if he's got all the time in the world. He's not looking in her direction when she arrives, but he doesn't startle, just casually cocks his head when she announces herself.

"You do know, Ms. Granger, that a jiffy is a measureable unit of time." His tone is severe, but also, she thinks, a bit mocking. There is just the barest hint of laughter lurking in his eyes. "In fact, it is equivalent to the length of time it takes a photon to travel one centimeter in a vacuum."

"So I'm back in several jiffies, then." She holds the Official up as evidence of her success, despite the time it's taken her to wrestle her conscience into submission. "Where did you want to go?"

"Several jiffies? Your math appalls me. Try twenty-one trillion, five-hundred-eighty-five billion, sixty-three million, and er, I've lost track now. But more than twenty-one trillion jiffies."

"You've sat here calculating that the entire time, haven't you?" It is so terribly, horribly wrong how badly she wants to snog that supercilious smirk off his face. There is something deeply disordered in her brain.

"Possibly." He takes the book from her, and flips through to the 'S' section. "Here we are. Stoke Newington, think you can manage it?"

"Since it doesn't involve calculating the speed of photons – who memorizes something like that, anyway? – I suppose you can trust it's within my capabilities." She takes the book back, and studies the page he's indicated.

Ministry apparition points have a sameness to them, empty flats with one or two identifying details. Nothing that's ever too challenging to visualize, but distinct enough you can keep it straight in your mind. Stoke Newington's is above a Caribbean takeaway, right next to the Overground station. It has broken venetian blinds, a worn orange rug, and an ornate frame centered on an off-white wall. The frame contains the words 'Stoke Newington', in alternating blue and red letters, which is the Ministry's usual. "Got it," she proclaims, and Snape follows her into the alley. She closes her eyes, calls it to mind, and then checks her recollection against the photograph. Excellent. Because it would be just awful to splinch Professor Snape.

He gives her a nod, and extends his hand. A suffocating eye blink later, she releases his fingers and sneezes in the dust their entrance has raised. He gives the shabby room an appraising sneer. "Well, I suppose I can't offer the usual complaints about Ministry standards, since I'm not paying taxes anymore. Come on, then."

She follows him down, into the street and the rain. There are nicely appointed new houses opposite the row of squat tenements they apparated into. Property values must be high around here. Probably the Ministry point won't be around much longer, taxes being what they are.

Snape is a brisk walker, but he slows after they dart across the street, and pauses while she struggles with her umbrella, which has popped a spoke. She mends it momentarily with a stitch-in-time charm. "So where are we going, then?"

"Here." He indicates the heavy iron fencing they are stopped in front of. The fence is fronting a brick walk, with trees on either side of it, which seems to wend off into a wooded park. But it isn't. "This is Abney Park Cemetery," he informs her, just as she's reading the words carved into the stone pillars on either side the gates.

His shoulders hunch up a little when she doesn't immediately respond. "I like coming here, is all. But we can go elsewhere." Why does she get the impression he's suddenly embarrassed, sorry to have suggested this?

"Lead the way," she says firmly. This is a place he likes, a place he's sharing with her, and she's not about to turn up her nose, for all that it's unconventional.

It isn't many paces before the neat grass and brick gives way to rough gravel paths, with funerary monuments and winter-bare trees looming on either side. They come to a fork in the path, and Snape, naturally enough, chooses the narrower one, which angles off into deeper woods. It is strangely surreal, to see cherubs and angels, spires and crosses, poking up out of trailing ivy and moss, seemingly abandoned to the forest that is consuming them.

It is so deeply still, here. The sounds of London, the traffic, the trains – it's gone entirely. She can only hear the crunch of their footsteps on the wet gravel, that soft patter of raindrops on their umbrellas. The air is redolent of wet earth, a good clean smell, for all that they are surrounded by the dead.

"This was one of the first of the garden cemeteries. Back in the 1830s, 1840s. The crypts and vaults, all the burial grounds in the City, they were literally overflowing. They were digging over the graves and scattering the bones, just to accommodate the newly dead. The smell, too, was deemed a sanitation problem. They used to punch holes in the coffins, tap them, to release the gases, else they'd explode." It's a horrible image that he's painting, but his words are so soft, falling in gentle cadence with the rain.

"So they brought the dead out here, to the big estates. Abney was for the Dissenters. Methodists, Unitarians, the Salvation Army. The lot of them. It was originally designed as an arboretum, a park. The wild's taking it back, because dead human beings hold no power against Nature. But the trees are here through our original benevolence, 2500 different species of them, or thereabouts.

They don't bury anyone here, anymore. It's nearly full-up. See those gravestones?" He points to serial files of them, leaning in crooked rows, one atop the next. "Where we're walking here, this is essentially a common grave. It sunk down over the years, as the coffins fell in. When they infilled it, they stacked all the stones off to the side like that. I don't suppose anyone down there minds much, anymore."

She nods at the justice of this, and thinks of the gilded mausoleum the Ministry had constructed to honour those who had died in Voldemort's war. "We go to such elaborate lengths," she offers.

"To memorialize the dead. Yes." He pauses, then gestures at a row of statuary. "Of course, the Victorians did it to the extremes – these monuments, with all their carvings. They're each one more intricate than the last. There's even a lion in here, you'd like him. He's atop the Bostocks, who owned a menagerie, if memory serves. This stonework," he rests his hand against the granite drape of an angel's robe, "It's all so beautifully formed. They must have been stunning when they were first carved. But I think I like them better, like this. Lichen and moss, covering over their names, anonymizing them."

"But don't you think it's important, to carry some memory of these people forward?" She can't see his face quite clearly, in the shadow of his umbrella, so she is not sure what emotions he might be displaying in the long minutes that pass before he answers her. They have walked on, before he finally speaks.

"I think that those who need memories will carry them on, regardless. But sometimes, I think the greatest kindness to the living is to let them go, to let the dead be truly free. I didn't always think so, but I've come 'round to the notion." Is he talking about Lily? There is something slow and wistful in his voice that assures her this is so.

"Too, although this stonework pleases the eye, and it may soothe the heart to think of having some winged guardian presiding over one's family, these monuments are just lids. It's nothing beautiful beneath them, just brick shafts, vaults with rotting coffins, stacked two by two all the way down, suspended above each other on naught but iron bars. Where is there beauty or grace in that? Better to be a tree."

She tries to imagine how densely green, how overflowing with life this place must be, when the trees are leafed out, and the stonework receding into shadows. Not quite forgotten, but no longer the centerpiece. Life, with its feet sunk down into the past, but nevertheless embracing the sky. She understands why he says he likes it here. She thinks she does, as well. "Thank you." It's too simple, but it's all she has. "Thank you for bringing me here."

The woods open out to a mouldering chapel, but they observe it only briefly, before passing on. Snape is here for the trees, and she is more than content to keep him company. "How did you come across this place?"

He frowns at graffiti that is decorating a marble column, and presses his hand to it. It vanishes, like an ink blot spreading in reverse. "My mother came here to sketch."

"Oh." His childhood must have been so strange, the Faceless Girl for a friend, and afternoons in a cemetery. "Was it under better repair, when you were young?"

"Hmm? No, I've not been clear. I found Abney Park in her sketchbooks; she only came to London after we'd parted ways. When I was finished school."

"So the Hive, then—" she blurts, before quite realising that he seems disinclined to expand on this.

"Her old collective bought the space, with some aid through arts and culture grants as it transpires. I became its de facto custodian when the Borough was tying up loose ends, some years back. Did you ever keep an ant farm, when you were a child?"

The speed of his apparent non sequitur nearly gives her whiplash. "Like, with the blue gel, and everything?"

"Or even dirt. I never did, never had the money or supplies to build one, but I always sort of wanted to. Having that lot underfoot makes up for it, I think. And well, before I was actually living there, it was nice not to have to worry about squatters. Although, to be fair, most of them aren't paying anything like a reasonable rent. Still, they're squatters with an internal vetting service, so the quality's a little higher, one imagines."

She chuckles softly at the endless depths of wry sarcasm in his tone, and decides that this explanation fits her understanding of the quiet, dour man who thinks such exquisite thoughts about graveyards. She has no difficulty imagining him staring endless hours at the incomprehensible motions of artist-ants.

"Hah! Look here!" He's dropped to a crouch between two towering memorials. " _Galanthus nivalis_ , snowdrops." And so they are, a little crowd of them, pearly petals nodding on fine green stems.

"There will be crocuses, soon, and then the daffodils. The woods have eaten any tulips that might have been here, but there's still bluebells. We'll have to come back, so you can see it in full spring, when the leaves are bursting."

"I'd like that very much," she says, and is nearly surprised at how deeply honest this assertion is. He has said _we_ and not _you_ , and hoping that this is a promise tightens up her throat.

"But we should probably be getting on for this evening." He stands, and gestures back the way they've come. "They'll be locking up soon."

They part near the gates – she to apparate home, and he to make his way from the Overground. He doesn't tell her to contact him, doesn't indicate that he will be in touch with her. Lying in bed again, staring at the crack in the plaster above her, she is overwhelmed with a certainty that she has imagined the afternoon. She lets the remaining marzipan melt in her mouth, and doesn't try to stop herself from crying into her pillow.

But the clouds are scudding across the sky in the morning, and in the sunlight it is easier to remind herself of Ronald, to resolutely dwell upon memories of his laughter, his little jokes, the way he would kiss her forehead or nuzzle her neck, before she took herself up to the attic to work. Before she took herself up to the attic to spend time with Severus Snape.

She doesn't take his lab manuals to the café for the remainder of the week.

She doesn't even go to the café, on Friday. She can finish her manuscript anytime, but today? Today is for Ronald. Her walk by the Thames runs long, but she still has hours when she returns to the flat, and she puts them to use. By the time the sun is setting, her hair is falling in sculptured waves, and the dress robes swirl stylishly, when she darts from her trunk to the mirror, unpacking the few cosmetics she's had no excuse to use yet. She checks the time. It's nearly after dinner, perhaps she should have eaten. Well, it's too late, and he might have been clearer as to what he meant by 'evening'. She purses her lips, and applies some colour, then touches a bit of kohl to her lash line. She smiles experimentally in the mirror. She looks quite lovely, really.

She wishes Severus could see her.

But that's stupid. He has Maddie, and doubtless plans of his own for the evening. A vision of his hands on the little urchin's tattooed wrists, pressing her against the winged back of one of the Abney angels, springs fully formed in her mind.

She whirls away from the mirror, and seats herself on the side of her bed, to wait. She's just being ridiculous. Or perhaps she's absolutely, completely insane. It's hard to tell, but she's definitely somewhere on that spectrum. Severus Snape, she tells herself firmly – again – is her friend. This is a nice, neat category for him. Harry is her friend. Neville is her friend. And she has no desire whatsoever to lick either of their cocks. She wouldn't want them grinding up against her arse. She does not want to feel their hands tangled in her hair.

She needs to get laid. She needs it badly; it's clearly been far too long. If Ronald makes the slightest intimation in that direction, she resolves she'll drag him straight off to bed. She'll even go on top, if he wants, because she has got to exorcise these sexual obsessions from her mind.

The tension falls out of her shoulders, when the knock at her door finally arrives. She takes a deep breath, pastes on something that she hopes passes for a seductive smile, lowers her eyelids, inclines her head coquettishly, and opens the door. He's wearing dark blue robes, is the first thing she notices, and she's unexpectedly thankful, because they won't clash. The second thing she notices, is that he's not Ronald.

"Hermione Granger?"

She nods.

He passes her an envelope with her name on it, and the Ministry seal in wax. Her fingers are suddenly clumsy, but she manages to fumble it open. She barely registers when he leaves, doesn't hear or recognize what he tells her, because her attention is taken over with words on the parchment that spell out incomprehensible things like _called to appear before a six member assembly of the Wizengamot_ and _formally charged by Mr. Ronald Weasley as a party at fault_ and _proceedings of the divorce to be further established pending disclosure of fault_.

She is shaking, badly, as she stumbles into the night.


	19. Narrative Structure

_**Author's Note:**_ _The ending of this chapter is the part of this story that has lived on my hard drive the longest._

* * *

 **Part XIX**

Grimmauld Place, she thinks. Harry knew this was coming, and he hadn't told her. _It's not important right now._ When the bloody hell did he think it would be worthwhile mentioning? He's supposed to be her friend, how could he just… Why isn't she worth any loyalty? She wants to rage at him (she wants to rage at Ronald) and she wants him to fix her tea and give her a hug and tell her that they'll always be friends, no matter what. Friends. Why hasn't she got any, she's thinking, as she pictures the entrance foyer at the Potters'.

The pressure of apparition is positively suffocating this time, and instead of simply popping back into reality, she's flung. She's aware of a crashing boom, which echoes through every bone in her skull, and a nauseating swirl of streetlights, just before the ground reaches up to smack her. It knocks the breath clear out of her, and for several instants while she's struggling to remember how to do this inhale-exhale thing, she doesn't feel the pain.

But those instants don't last. "Oh fuck," she moans, as she struggles to sit up, to assess the damage. She's fucking _splinched_ , hasn't she? Fuck, fuck, fuckity-fuck, where are her legs? Okay, they're there – or they hurt enough that they should be. "Ow, shit!" The palms of her hands are lacerated, she flinches from using them to raise herself up.

"What the bloody hell is going on out here? Townes, is that you?" A door across from where she's landed has opened. "Shite!"

And Severus Snape is suddenly in her field of view, brows contracted, eyes wide with alarm. "Have you splinched yourself, then? Fucking hell, Granger!"

"I don't know," she manages, past teeth grit against pain. What the bleeding fuck is she doing in Hackney Wick, of all places?

He's making a quick study of her limbs, patting her down through the tangled fabric of her robes. Apparently they're intact, because next he pulls her into a sitting position, lifts her hair back. "Right, torso, limbs, and ears accounted for. Fingers too, toes. Looks like the only casualties are your shoes, if you were wearing any."

She can't help it, she starts laughing and oh God, it hurts so much. There's going to be a pair of shoes outside Grimmauld Place in the morning, likely, and her brain has supplied _Cinderella_ , and the resulting mental image is just too pathetically absurd.

"Lovely. Hysterics. Do you want to stop on your own, or should I slap you?"

She stops. "Ouch, please don't, I'm in enough pain."

"A learning experience for you. Let's see if your astounding good fortune lasts long enough to get you up off the street before someone else comes to investigate your excessively dramatic entrance." He hooks an arm around her back, and lifts her up by the armpits.

"Ohgodfuckno! My ankle!" It won't bear her weight. He catches her as she crumples. "Ow!" He's prodding at it, rotating her foot.

"Sprained, I think. Can't tell for sure in this light, but at least it's not broken."

"Oy!" Comes a shout, "Snape, is that you? What's going on?"

"Don't know!" he calls back. "I thought it was you lot."

Fuck. The muggles have arrived. Or one of them, anyway. It's the poofter, Val. Snape moves to intercept her view, or perhaps Val's view of her. Her and her dress robes. Where's her wand? She'll need it to confund this interloper, at minimum.

"Nah, it's quiet on our side. Everyone ok, what happened?"

"Like I said, no idea. Maybe a gas main blew somewhere – sounded close, though."

"What's the damage here?"

"Her? Bints in heels, isn't it always? She's done in her ankle."

Val adopts a pose, hand on hip, "Girl _friend_ , those things are deeeaaad-ly."

"I'm becoming aware," she grinds out past clenched teeth. Can't Snape confund him? He managed battle hexes without a wand.

But Snape seems to be starting up a fucking conversation with him: "I suppose you're all alone over there? I should've thought you'd be out with the sisterhood, taking back the night."

" _Sisterhood_? Okay, seriously, Sevvie, I do _not_ have a va-jay-jay. And I am slightly worried for you, if you can't tell the difference."

He rolls his eyes, and his sigh seems long-suffering and deeply felt. "Your quarrels with absolutely everyone aside, _Valentine_ , isn't it close to forty percent of gay men who experience some form of sexual violence? I'd think you could stand to offer your support."

"Forty percent, yeah? Isn't it also two in five people that bring up statistics who get punched in the face?"

"Hah. You'd break a nail. Here, Hermione, put an arm over. I think we're cancelling tonight." He guides her arm around his neck, and leans across her body. Under this visual cover, he's tucking the bulk of her robes in against her thighs. It's dark enough that she supposes they might pass for a dress, if his intention is to make Val believe they were heading out to some function. A date. Worst. Date. Ever.

"Well, there is that. And I just got 'em buffed." Val extends his hand as if inviting them to admire his manicure.

Snape turns to regard their audience, and, his voice dripping mock-pity, says "They didn't invite you along, did they?"

"And I wouldn't have gone," Val replies, with an air of serene disinterest, "Besides, I'm hooking up tonight. Say, if her ankle's broken, do you have tickets for anything, that are just going to be tragically wasted?"

"'Hooking up' and opera hardly seem compatible. And you're a vulture, did you know?"

 _Opera_ is actually a good cover. She's impressed, or she would be if he hadn't just jostled her leg, in bending her knees up.

"Yeah, that's tragic alright. And true. Maurice just doesn't seem the cultured type, so sad. Drywallers, you know. But oh-em-gee, his biiiiiiiceps! Aaaaaaah! So good, so good."

Snape's snort of disgust is a thing of perfection. It's got exactly the same intonation that he always used for whatever horror Harry and Ronald had managed to brew in his class. "Enjoy yourself," he says, darkly.

"Thanks, I will." Val simpers at them. "I'd wish you the same, only y'know, ankles. You are totally not getting any tonight." He gives them a wave, and saunters back around the corner of the warehouse.

"My _wand_ ," she mutters.

"Let's see about some ice for that ankle," Snape answers, a bit too loudly, and hefts her up.

It hurts, but she clenches her jaw and bears through it, and only winces when he deposits her on his sofa. "You could have just confunded him," she points out.

"I could have done. But his brain needn't resemble Swiss cheese any more than it already does. Thinking fast is just as easy. Right, then - if you're fine for a second, I'll go and look for your wand."

She nods, and he heads back outside, emitting an obvious sigh as he passes out the door. Maddie's apparently not here, but that doesn't mean he wasn't planning to meet up with her. He's back in short order. Without her wand. He shakes his head, but it's an unnecessary communication.

"You tried summoning it?"

"Of course not, that would never have occurred to me." He seats himself across from her, pushes his sleeves up a bit – he's wearing a jumper, a nice one in a soft cable knit. He unbuttons his shirt cuffs too, and rolls them back. And then abruptly begins to laugh.

"My wand is missing, I don't see what's funny!" She is beginning to panic, and all he does is laugh harder.

"Sorry! Sorry, except, no, it's just too funny. Oh, God!" He wipes at his eyes, and bursts into another howl of laughter. Finally he pulls a cushion off the side of the chair, and buries his face in it. She watches his shoulders heaving – is he silently laughing, or trying to breathe? She can't tell. He finally raises his eyes above the edge of cushion; they're still sparkling with amusement, from behind the curtain of his hair, but he seems to have control of himself. He relinquishes the cushion entirely, and sags back into the upholstery. "Oh, gracious me. I am sorry, Miss Granger. But it's just… ah, the irony! Now, splinching your shoes – that's a very Hermione Granger kind of thing to do, but your wand? Lord, what kind of witch splinches her wand, and where have you stashed Miss Granger's body?"

"Hah. Yes, this is all very funny."

"Been that kind of day, eh?" he asks, sympathetic now that he's done laughing at her expense. "Oh, I tried 'Accio Granger's belongings', thinking maybe it'd turn up a shoe or two, at least, but I only got this."

It's the Ministry envelope. She must be insane, because she actually takes it from his outstretched hand. "Thanks," she even says, and sets it beside her on the sofa.

"Let's see about getting some dittany for those cuts and scrapes. It's up to you if you want me to give that ankle a go. Shame about your wand."

A shame indeed; she could've healed her ankle in a trice. He's rummaging about in the plants off next to the window, and comes back with three round, fleshy little leaves, covered over in velvety grey fur. He peels them open with his fingernails, and gestures for her to extend her hands. It is strangely intimate to have him swiping the leaf juice across her scrapes, but he doesn't make any comment, just watches as a faint trickle of greenish smoke seeps off her healing wounds. "It's not as efficacious as the essential oil, but for minor injuries, the raw leaves certainly suffice." They do, she sees.

"I didn't realize your plants were magical."

"Most aren't, but I've got a few interesting things tucked in, here and there."

"It's impressive, all this. I've got a brown thumb, I think. Though I have managed to keep a _Dieffenbachia_ alive," she puts in.

"That's a start," he says judiciously, "I began with a _Sansevieria_ , myself. Common houseplants are gateway drugs, so you might want to exercise caution. So what's your decision on the ankle?"

"Ice, I think. Maybe if the swelling goes down?"

He goes off to rummage in the kitchen, and she wonders again if she's intruding on his plans for the evening.

"So where _were_ you trying to apparate, before gracing the Wick with your dress robes?" He passes her an ice pack, and she wishes he weren't watching, because she'd apply it to her flaming face.

"To Grimmauld Place. I was going to give Harry a telling-off." And she'll definitely have to go tomorrow, and see if her wand turned up there. Whether she tells him off or not…

"Doubtless he needs it, but what's Potter done in particular?"

"Nothing." She ducks her head, but this isn't a good answer, and when she risks a glance at him, she can see he's about to tell her so. "He knew Ronald was going to have me served with divorce papers today."

His eyebrows raise, and he gestures at the Ministry envelope with a mute query.

"Yeah."

"Hmmph. That's tasteful on his part."

"Exceedingly so. A nicely romantic gesture, suits the occasion." Echoing his sarcasm somehow takes the sting of embarrassment out of it.

"I'd offer you hard liquor, on such a joyous and momentous occasion as your impending freedom, but I haven't got anything to hand, more's the pity. Do you drink wine?"

She nods.

"Red alright? There might be a zinn around here somewhere, but I respect you more than that."

"Red is fine."

"I've got a fairly good cabernet sauvignon, and a cheap merlot, which would you rather?"

She sees that there's a glass beside his chair, so "Whatever you're drinking will fine."

"Cheap merlot it is. There's more of it, three entire bottles, and quantity seemed appropriate for the occasion." He rises, to fetch the remains of the bottle he'd been working on, and a second because apparently he's serious about this. She nods her thanks as she accepts the glass he overpours for her.

"I thought you'd have been doing something, for the holiday. Aren't you?" Where is Maddie, she wants to ask.

"Oh, I was doing something. Exactly what I do every other day."

She raises her eyebrows expectantly.

"Read. Books, you know?"

"I'm intimately familiar with the concept, yes." She responds to the curl of his lip, rather than his tone, which is nearly dry enough to be cause for offense. "But what do you get up to aside from reading?"

"Did you know, every year there are more than seven hundred titles published in science fiction and fantasy alone? Let's charitably assume half of them are worth reading once – even at a novel a day, even if the publishing industry entirely collapsed, I've got enough backlog to last me the remainder of my life. On the rare occasion that the novelty of reading for pleasure pales, I tend to my little ant farm, yonder."

He's taking the piss, probably, but it doesn't seem as though she's interrupted anything important. Shall they have conversation, with their cheap merlot? He seems inclined, so she extends a question: "What are you reading now, then?"

"Heinlein. It's called 'Friday', so clearly I'm reading it for the depth of the symbolism on such a day."

She smirks in appreciation, and fumbles for what to say next. She hates it when people ask her what a book is about – if they're genuinely curious, they can read the publisher's blurb. So instead she asks, "Is it any good?"

Severus – he's fully Severus now, because she calls people by their first name once they've proven themselves willing to talk about books - Severus hefts it in his hand, as if its weight plays into his consideration. "Not really, no," he says, eventually, "It hasn't got a plot, to begin with. Perhaps it will redeem itself in the last few chapters, but I have my doubts."

"I didn't realise novels could lack plots."

"Oh, easily." His hands sketch a breezy motion as he elaborates: "You just string together unconnected narrative events in no particularly meaningful order, and with no attention to the principal structure of a novel, which is to say, being centered upon a conflict and its resolution. When you think about it, it's not even surprising how many people won't notice when a work contains only events and not plot."

She frowns thoughtfully. "I'd notice. And you'd think something without a plot wouldn't even be publishable."

"In this case, it's probably because it was Heinlein. Everyone on the editorial side would be afraid they were simply failing to 'grok' the text." He gives her a sly, conspiratorial smile; she mirrors as if they are sharing a joke. She doesn't really get it, but the context of the word and his expression are clear enough that she can see he's being sarcastic.

"What I meant, though," he continues, "Is that a mundane reader might be easily satisfied with a series of events – after all, that's what their own lives are made up of. Which also adequately explains the popularity of television serials, so I'm fairly comfortable positing it as a general theory, instead of a mere hypothesis."

She nods. "Books end, life doesn't. I wonder, do you suppose people who have more life experiences than familiarity with literature are just confused by books, when considered from a structural perspective?"

"Hah, there's a thought. Perhaps. Although I think the other sort might be worse, honestly."

"People who read?"

He raises his glass, toasting her look of incredulity. "Consider: there's ultimately more danger, to self and society, from someone who's apt to conceptualize their life as a narrative, and themselves as its protagonist. I expect that's why people are always careening from one disaster to another – it's because they're searching for a plot, they need conflict – with others, with circumstance – they need it in order to feel like they're even alive, because they've gotten hold of a skewed metric by which to judge the condition."

"Life: heroes and villains need not apply?"

"Precisely. Just do your bit, take what joy you can in observing. Leave things better than you found them, if you can, or at least no worse. Read books, drink wine." He does.

She is momentarily fixated on the sight of his lower lip pressed against his glass. "Are you quite sure you're not a secret Hufflepuff?" she asks, attempting to recover some sense of dignity in the half-mocking abrogation of his.

"Good Lord, I hope not. I think, at their core, we Slytherins are motivated by self-interest, of which ambition is only an extroverted facet. And there's nothing more fundamentally self-interested than doing something solely for yourself, perhaps in utter violation of society's expectations. Or – actually, there is a higher pinnacle of that: doing nothing at all."

He swings his legs up over the arm of his chair, the perfect picture of indolence, and a physical exclamation mark on this point. "That's supreme self-interest. Using up oxygen and resources and doing no good whatsoever by it. No evil, either, because evil acts give the do-gooders something to rail against, and then you've actually contributed to humanity, in a backwards way."

"Have you just made an argument that Voldemort was a good thing?" Is she mocking him, or trying to pick a fight? Both, maybe, because Professor Snape – Severus – Professor Snape should not look quite so cozy, even in his own home.

He's not going for it, though. He just smiles, gently, and seems to contemplate the question. "I have, haven't I? Things are better for the muggle-born now, at least. I've kept up with the news a little; the Ministry enacted that preferential hiring policy, and the last I heard it was approaching fifty-percent saturation. I think it sometimes takes great evil to really shift consciousness, to enact meaningful change throughout a society."

"Maybe you're right about that much," she concedes, "Things _have_ changed. Maybe not on any personal front, but statistically. Y'know, I heard from Neville that there are even muggleborns in Slytherin House, now."

"Neville? Longbottom?" he straightens from his repose in a single fluid motion, and doesn't even slosh his glass.

"Hah, yes, would you believe he's teaching at Hogwarts?"

"God. And the castle's standing?"

He looks so horrified and affronted that she can't help laughing. "Well, he's taken Herbology, so I suppose there's a limited amount of damage he could really do."

"There's certainly comfort in the observation that plants don't habitually explode."

"Come now. You've got a bomber next door."

"Fair enough," he agrees with a little shrug. His next words, however, are grave, and back on topic: "It's a dangerous misconception, though, that Slytherin was pureblooded before the War. I'm surprised no one is saying otherwise."

"Oh, well, they do. Everyone knows there were always half-bloods, and it's common knowledge now that Riddle was, himself," she hastens to reassure him.

"No, but the muggleborns - there _have_ been muggleborns, too. Not many. But some. They didn't advertise, for obvious reasons, but everyone in the House knew who they were. It was considered sporting, to bring them up to speed as quickly as possible, to make sure they could assimilate and pass. I won't say there weren't predictably toxic effects from that mindset, but…"

He draws in a deep breath; she is close enough to hear that it shudders, at the end. "But they weren't _disadvantaged_ by their origins. There has always been a reasonable argument that if other Houses had done the same, most of the issues that Riddle's supporters hoisted up as causes – those issues simply would not have existed."

Disadvantaged. His stress on that word means something more than what he's said, she's sure of it. She thinks of grimy, desolate Cokeworth, a two-up, two-down with a privy out back. He may have known some magic before turning up at Platform 9¾, but he certainly couldn't have held his own against posh acts like the Malfoys and the Blacks. Even she would have fit in better than him, for all her bucked teeth and arm-waving. She'd had the right robes, and she'd read enough in _Hogwarts, A History_ that she could have passed. Would have passed, if she'd ever made any effort. Slughorn had even been coaching her on how to do it, hadn't he? Offering her a likely genealogy. Was that just spillover, leakage, of internal Slytherin ethos that she'd never known existed?

She's let down her side of the conversation, she realizes. He's giving her an inscrutable look, and his shoulders appear to have tensed. Oh. He's just advocated muggleborn assimilation.

"I… You know, I actually agree with some of that." She sees his shoulders lower, just a little. "If there's proper emphasis on respecting muggle culture, acknowledging muggleborns as having originated in non-wizarding circumstances, but not holding that against them… I don't really see where spending a little time teaching them the nuances of wizarding society is harmful. There are so many things I had to learn the hard way, so many mistakes I made – and I was such a bloody know-it-all, but there're things that _just_ _aren't_ _in_ _books_." She takes a deep breath, and releases this sense of betrayal. "The problem comes in when muggles are deemed subhuman."

"Yes. It's a kind of racial violence, isn't it? We perpetrate it upon muggles, the way they do upon each other. Even those of us with the best intentions. Ever think about some of the concealing charms we use? How many of them are predicated on distracting muggles from what they're doing? Even yourself, earlier, you wondered at why I didn't just confund Val."

"Hmm. There is definitely justice in what you're saying," she concedes, "But I confess I don't know what the answer is."

"What I think is this: If you're faced with an insoluble problem, where everything you do is only going to make things worse, or change them not at all, _just do nothing_. Where's the problem with just settling in and reading a good book?"

They've come full circle, and she is beginning to suspect him of being something more than merely cynical, a nihilist in truth. Or acting the part, anyway. And the Severus Snape she thinks she knew was a master at method-acting any part he chose to play. "But then, reading plots inspires us to find plot in our own lives," she reminds him, curious to see how he'll counter this apparent tautology.

"Yes, there's that problem. That's why inaction is important. Either that, or imagine this! What if the Universe were authored by someone vaguely competent in the art of writing? We'd just play out our respective narrative arcs, and then at our moment of supreme triumph or utter tragedy, pffft, out like a candle," he mimes a pinching motion as if snuffing a flame, "And that's the end of that. No further opportunity to make a mess of it all. And it would be so much easier than ever-after deliberately avoiding the search for plot."

"Our own narrative arcs. They ended when the war did, didn't they." She flops her head back into the sofa. Done before she'd turned twenty, what a story. "We're just epilogue, now."

"And aren't those unsatisfying."

She's becoming uncomfortable with what he's implying about his own existence. Because surely that's what he's been saying, wrapped up in all this deliberately ridiculous philosophy: that he's sorry to have persisted. Sorry to have outlived his 'plot'. "What do real people do, though? They go and find another plot, don't they? A sequel, and some of those are worth reading, in my experience."

"That seems like a terrible lot of effort to go to. Reading, maybe, but convince me it would be worth living it."

She opens her mouth, but the words disappear as her eyes graze the Ministry envelope, which is still sitting beside her on the sofa, taking up space, a hostile observer waiting to get a word into their conversation. So it isn't surprising that when she does speak, it's the parchment giving her voice: "Nope. Don't think I can, actually. Evidence suggests sequels are generally unpleasant for every character involved."

He nods sagely, and reaches across to pour her more wine. He must've noticed the direction she looked, because he issues her a grim sort of smile. "Feel like burning it?"

"Wouldn't change anything, would it?"

"It might make you feel better."

She scrubs at her face. She's maybe had too much wine already; she should stop before she blubbers on him, and _he_ should stop trying to be sympathetic, because he's been managing it a little too well for comfort. "So if you're not in favour of plot, I take it you are actually enjoying that book?"

"I hadn't really thought about it. Maybe. The writing isn't terrible, although I suspect I am still holding out for a resolution. You don't need plot of your own if you're getting a steady diet of it vicariously."

"Can't interest you in any of mine, then?" Whoops, she'd been intending _not_ to talk about this, hadn't she?

"While I appreciate your generosity, I think I'll pass."

She can't think of anything to say, and it seems he can't either. The resulting silence isn't quite painful, but it's not comfortable, either.

He rises, finally. "Let's see about that ankle."

She pulls the hem of her robe up. It doesn't hurt so badly to twist it, now, but there's a sizeable purple knot.

"Looks like you've only twisted it; take the swelling down and you should be fine if you're careful on it." He is looking a question at her, his hand hovering a few inches above her injury. She nods her permission, and he places his fingers upon her. There is a brief warm tingle. "There, good as new."

It seems to be. Right, then, she should make motions towards leaving, "Thank you. And I am sorry, turning up like this."

"Nonsense. So tell me about this situation, that's had you so rattled. Have you - have you not been on the outs with Weasley for a while?" He has poured himself another glass, too, and gestures for her to take up her own.

"A couple months. I thought you weren't interested in my excess of plot?"

"Oh, vicariously, I'm sure it'll be fine. Besides, I can't exactly fetch the Crisis Bints for you, tonight."

"What?" she splutters into her glass.

"Er, from next door. They're, uh, not really the agony aunts, and, er, they seem to create as many crises as they solve, but… uh, if you wanted someone else to talk to? Maybe they're back by now."

She shakes her head. No, she's going to pour her heart out to Severus Snape, of all people. "It's your fault, you know. You shouldn't have told me we were friends. Friends have to listen to each other's melodrama, there's no escaping it."

"I'm familiar, yes. Go ahead, what's the ruddy tosser done?"

Had he been Lily's sounding board? Had she been seeing James, at any point prior to the extinction of their friendship? Or maybe some other boy. How many tearful conversations might he have had to endure? She resolves that she is not going to cry. "I reckon we did it to each other. We split up before Christmas. Crooks, Crookshanks, a cat I had, had died."

"The same you had at Hogwarts? I'm sorry to hear that," he interjects. "I shouldn't tell you this, probably, but I once entertained a plot of kidnapping him. For company," he responds to the look she's giving him.

She smiles weakly. "He was very good company." How lonely would you have to be, to want to steal a student's cat? She really should not dwell on this question, she knows. "Anyway, Ronald and I had it out that night, and decided to live apart for a bit. And I thought we were going to talk it through, finally, figure out where to go next."

This isn't even half the truth, on more levels than one. "No, I didn't think it. I assumed. And then _this_ shows up. He couldn't even have the decency to file the proceedings as a no-fault divorce; I'd have done. I was doing. I held off filing because Molly said to wait until St. Valentine's and I believed her, that she'd talk to Ron and— " She bites hard at her lip, because she's very close to tears now and she promised that she wasn't going to make him endure her crying. She takes a sip of wine, instead.

He's shaking his head. "I wasn't quite being serious before, but he _is_ a tosser. Listen, don't let it upset you unduly, he's probably just grandstanding. If he's claiming fault, well, the Wizengamot will sort it out; unless there's been infidelity or violence, it almost always settles out as a no-fault divorce, they're used to one party or the other having their bitty feelings hurt and wanting some public vengeance."

"How do you know all this?"

"I taught at a boarding school, have you forgotten? We saw the effects of this kind of needless drama all the time."

"I guess I hadn't considered. It didn't seem like divorce was all that common, except in half-blood or muggleborn families."

"Maybe not common," he revises, "But not uncommon. A wizarding marriage is just as soluble as a muggle one. Historically less-so, because people were more concerned with familial relationships, and many pureblood marriages were arranged with an eye to politicking. So expectations were lower. But even then, not uncommon."

This is reassuring, and the picture he's painted of proceedings… well, she can sketch Ronald into that scene quite easily.

"Look, I know what'll cheer you up – it's the most depressing waltz known to mankind, it's perfect." He darts up – how is he still moving so precisely? He's had a lot more wine than she has – and fiddles with something complicated and electronic on one of the shelves.

Strands of music fill the air, and at first only the resonance of the singer's voice is interesting. But the words are clear and then suddenly she hears _A tree where the doves go to die_ , and she understands what he means: this is the most depressing waltz known to mankind. Oh yes, a broken love song is perfectly appropriate to the day she's had.

"It's Leonard Cohen; he translated this from a Spanish poem, by a fellow named Federico Garcia Lorca."

"You read poetry, in addition to science fiction?"

"Not in the least. I was only curious about this, so I looked it up. It turns out Lorca was executed at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. Civil wars are hard on geniuses, look at what happened to Lavoisier. So I've decided I like it; that probably owes more to having a predilection towards clever people offed in the name of political expediency, than it does to any genuine taste. I think it's to do with a cautionary moral I've internalized.'

"It's visually arresting, anyway." The song is beginning to repeat itself, he must have put it on a loop.

He extends a hand towards her. "Come," he commands, pulling her up off the sofa with a maniacal grin. She doesn't know what he's about until he extends their paired arms in a parody of a couple waltzing. She half-stumbles, laughing, as they careen between the plants and furniture, but she catches her balance and somehow they are suddenly in sync, their bodies moving together, and neither is laughing anymore.

 _in some hallway where love's never been_ \- The pressure of his hand at the small of her back, the scent of his clothing, his skin. She is so close that she can hear his heart, or is that her own?

 _my mouth on the dew of your thighs -_ And this is precisely where she wants his mouth. His lips are slightly parted, and without the tension of a habitual sneer they are almost obscenely vulnerable.

They have slowed, and the waltz flows away without them. She looks up at him. His lips tense on a word, then close. She lifts her hand from his, slowly, and it is as if this motion has him under a spell; his eyes fix upon it, until her fingertips are brushing the slightest stubble along his jaw. Again his lips move, soundlessly. She raises up on the balls of her feet, and tastes them.

But there is no answering softness, no yielding to the pressure she's applied, and the final discordant notes of the waltz tell a truth she failed to recognize in the sorrow of _the pools that you left on your wrist._

He steps away, and his face is curiously frozen for a moment. Again, he begins to speak. Again, he does not. Instead, he turns away, and turns the music off. Then, with slow steps, he ascends the staircase to his loft.

She collapses onto the sofa as if her strings have been cut.

She finishes her wine.

It is clear that he is not going to come back.

She lets herself out, and begins a lonely walk home, into a night that is beyond the power of anyone to retrieve or claim ownership of.


	20. In Vino Veritas

**Part XX**

Hermione Granger is drunk. Or is she Hermione Weasley? Because she thinks maybe she had more sense, back when she was 'Granger', and wouldn't it be pleasant if a divorce could reunite her with her faculties?

Hermione Granger didn't do profoundly stupid things, like attempting to walk to Hackney Wick Station without any shoes. And Hermione Granger certainly never did such profoundly stupid things as splinching an apparition and losing her wand – Professor Snape was right about _that_. Finally, Hermione Granger didn't do profoundly stupid things like kissing Professor Snape.

What had he asked? Where did she stash the body? She doesn't know.

She sags against a convenient brick wall. Even if she did know, it'd be all to maggots by now, anyway. Beetles and worms heaving out the eye sockets, and he wouldn't want to kiss that, either. Though maybe he'd come to visit. If she were in Abney Park. But they don't bury anyone there, anymore.

So it's useless, really.

Holding the concealing charm in place without her wand is taking its toll; her head is beginning to pound from it, or maybe that's the wine. The way the world won't stay still, and how she keeps stubbing her toes – that's definitely down to cheap merlot. She'll just sit here a bit, take a rest. She's got nowhere in particular to be, anyway – it's a month 'til the Wizengamot hearing, and surely she'll have made it home by then. She pulls her outer robe off, for a cushion against the grime of the pavement. But sitting isn't much better than standing, and perhaps she'll just lay her head down for a minute or two, until the nausea passes.

"Sweetie, love, are you okay?" Someone is prodding her shoulder.

"Probably just a wino. Come _on_."

"Maddie, that kind of classist discrimination is highly unattractive."

Oh good, it's the competition, come to have a laugh. She tries to get her eyes open, but that makes everything worse, because now she can see her tormentors. Martin – Cathy, was it? – is kneeling in front of her, but her dreadlocks don't block out enough of O'Shea. Apparently Maddie doesn't own clothes. She's decked out in garters and lingerie, rhinestones and body paint, or maybe it's all tattoos, in which case she's clearly someone with a pain kink. She's got a plume of ostrich feathers erupting from behind her, too, which Hermione has to squint at twice, to make sure she isn't hallucinating.

If _this_ is what Snape would rather have, she's glad he turned her down. She can't compete, nor would she want to.

"So let's call 999 and get on with it. I'm freezing my tits off out here."

"Then you should've brought a coat, shouldn't you? Some of us have a sense of civic duty to our sisters. We've already abandoned Meenal—"

"What, abandoned? She's got Gwen and the boys. And if she'd taken Aljos up on his offer, instead of building that thing out of chicken wire—"

"You cannot possibly have missed the point, about the fragility of feminine power."

"Why, for godssake? Why is it fragile? It's only fragile because we keep saying it is."

"Sometimes I want to shake you; weren't you listening to any of the statistics tonight?"

"So we're going to make meaningful change to our downtrodden-victim condition, by whinging on about how we're delicate flowers?"

"No, you idiot. We're going to make meaningful change by acknowledging that we're not men with vaginas, that we approach power as a collective property - that we give it to each other, through our support and our sisterhood. And that's what I'm doing, helping out a sister. Leave, if you can't pretend you have any empathy."

Hermione wishes they would both fuck off, and take their argument with them. Maybe she'll hex them. Can you perform _Silencio_ without a wand? Or fuck it, maybe she should go straight to offensives.

"You don't have to get _nasty_."

"Do something useful, find my water bottle in my bag. Sweetie, are you okay to sit up? Can you tell me if you're okay?"

Martin's arms are around her shoulders. Her head lolls; she seems to have lost her muscles. Her tongue is thick, but it works, sort of. "No, I'm not okay. I think… I think I'm devastated. That's a good word: laid to waste. Waste, garbage, debris. That's what Ronald thinks, just throw me away." The words are catching in her throat, and she's starting to cry, all those tears she wouldn't let Snape see.

"Whoa, easy, love. Take a breath, I need you to stay with me. Is Ronald someone you were with tonight? Do you know where he is?"

"No, I don't know! At home, I guess. No, that's not right, because I don't live there anymore. There's no one at home. I don't like my home, maybe I won't even go back there."

"Sweetie, it's going to be alright. Come on, let's just have a sit, okay?" Martin has plopped herself down alongside, and is cradling Hermione against her shoulder. "Can you tell me where home is?"

"Cath, this bint's langered; you're feeding biscuits to a bear trying to get any sense out of her," Maddie puts in.

"Maddie, shut up if you can't be helpful," Martin says from between gritted teeth.

She is liking Cathy Martin more by the minute, except for how she keeps insisting upon asking questions, like: "Sweetie, can you tell us where you were, earlier?"

And what Hermione wants to do, is express an opinion: "You know, I think I hate you. Not you. You, O'Shea. Maddie. You're Lily, only you're worse than Lily, because she's dead."

"Wow, feck me, Cathy-girl. It is seriously time to call this one in to the pigs; this bitch is freaking me out."

Cathy ignores her. "Babes, stay with me over here. Who's Lily? Is she a friend of yours?"

"No, she's _his_ friend. He was in love with her, though. He'll never love anyone else." Actually, that's a good thing, it means he doesn't really love Maddie, either.

But Maddie O'Shea isn't someone you can ignore, evidently. "Cathy, this freaky cunt knows my last name. Have you noticed that?"

"Because she's local, obviously." So Cathy doesn't recognise her, either?

" _I've_ never seen her before."

Apparently she really _is_ that forgettable. "But I brought croissants!"

"Well fuck me gently." Maddie whistles, and rocks back on her ridiculous heels. "I _do_ know who she is; remember, she came by the Hive the night we blew the beaver, and you hijacked her to look at your garden? She's a friend of Snape's."

"I don't want to be his friend anymore," she tells them, earnestly. She believes it, too. She's done getting run over like this; she can't survive any more heartbreak.

"Well, then, give me a hand with her, Maddie - we really can't just leave her like this, and I'm not about to bring the filth down on one of our own. Sweetie, let's see about going someplace a little less dodgy, okay? How come you don't want to be friends with Mr. Snape anymore?"

"Because he's just like Ronald." Maybe all men are alike, maybe she's been deluded in thinking otherwise. Cathy is gently wiping her face with a handkerchief; she hopes she hasn't been leaking snot down, that it's just her eyes that are dripping.

"Who's this Ronald bloke you're on about?" Maddie asks, as they haul her up to her feet.

"My husband. He didn't send me roses and chocolate — he sent divorce papers!"

"Wot, today? What an utter shitehawk. Still, that's no excuse for _you_ : honestly, your best and brightest idea was to go on the tear, have yourself a right bender? It were me, I'd've done the bastard in, fed him his bollocks battered in ale. Gone 'round to his, and castrated the motherfucker!"

"No wonder he likes you," she says miserably. Because Maddie's got her priorities — of course this is what she should have done. Or better, she should have gone to the Burrow, and told Ronald's mother what he's been about.

"Who likes me?"

"Pr'fess'r Snape." Her words keep slurring up; this is annoying because it makes her sound stupider than she is. Which isn't much, but still.

"Yeah?"

" _He_ probably thinks I'm a dunderhead, too."

Maddie bursts out laughing. "What kind of antiquated word is that? Girlfriend, you simply _cannot_ rage against the patriarchy without a decent vocabulary; no wonder you're a wreck."

"''s'not my word. Pr'fessor Snape called us that. At school."

"That is still so weird, imagining him as a teacher."

"Why?" Cathy asks, "A swot like him? He's totally the sort."

"Him? Seriously? He's a mopey muppet, they'd have eaten him for breakfast. I mean, ' _dunderhead'._ Really."

"Be nice, he's hardly a muppet."

"I can call him a muppet if I want to, he's _my_ mate."

"He's only your mate because you refuse to acknowledge the sarcasm he consistently levels at you."

"Well that's the way you've gotta do it, with fellas like him."

Hermione's losing the thread of what they're even talking about, and she's about to lose her composure too. Where 'composure' is several glasses of wine on an empty stomach.

"Oh! Hang on! Maddie, lend a hand here! It's okay, honey, we've got you."

"Better out than in." And for once, Hermione is in full agreement with Maddie O'Shea.

Cathy is holding her hair back, as she retches helplessly into a rubbish bin. The smell keeps her stomach heaving, even after there's nothing left to come up. God, she's probably puked all down her pretty new robes; maybe the stains won't show on the outers, except she's not wearing them anymore, is she. Damn it, she can't even keep her clothing in one piece, let alone her mind, her sense of self. She swipes at saliva that's trailing down her chin; Cathy interrupts her motion: wipes her hand, wipes her face.

"Honey, come on, don't cry. It's okay. It's going to be alright."

No it isn't. She's made a complete fool of herself tonight – for Ronald, with Severus, in front of these women.

They're pulling her down onto a doorstep. Cathy presses a water bottle to her lips. "Here, rinse and spit. It's okay, I've got you. Just spit. Good. Okay, little sips. Just a little bit, give that a chance to settle. Where are your shoes, baby?"

"Dunno." She blows her nose in Cathy's handkerchief.

"Look, Cath, we're not going to get Cinderella here back to the Hive on our own, she's blotto."

She pushes the water bottle back, panicking. "No, not to the Hive, I can't go there!"

"Is that where you were, were you with Mr. Snape this evening?"

"We were talking about books. Severus and I. And about plot, and how we've lost ours —"

"Someone's lost the plot, alright." Maddie, of course. Sarcastically. She _is_ perfect for him.

"—And then we were dancing, and I kissed him!"

"Snape? Seriously? Bet that went over like a cup of chunder."

"Jesus, Maddie, must you? Sweetie, are you okay, did he hurt you?"

"He wouldn't, you know he wouldn't," Maddie is fiercely indignant, "She's completely plastered, he'd never."

"Maddie, take a flying fuck for half a minute, _please_ , and let me talk to her. Did Mr. Snape – did Severus – did he make you do anything you didn't want to?"

"No, he doesn't want me. No one wants me!" she wails.

"Okay, sweetie, I need you to take a deep breath. You're pretty intoxicated right now. You need to—"

"You need to calm the fuck down, is what you need. Slap the crazy bitch, already."

" _Maddie_."

"Look, Cathy, you're trying to rape-counsel a drunk girl. Ten to one, you're wasting your time. There's nothing to it, I've known Severus for years."

"So have I."

"Well then, it's a load of tosh and you know it. Even if she weren't pissed, I seriously doubt Snape would ever make a pass at her; he's a fecking daffodil. Poor old Mother Superior probably just hurt her ickle feelings. Let's just shove her in a cab, already."

"Yeah, okay, if we go with her."

"What, dressed like this? It's brass monkeys!"

"Should've thought of that before dressing to make a point, then. Go home if you want, I can handle this."

Maddie sighs. "You bloody well can't; I'll come with."

Hermione comes to the rational decision that she would like to die, as the cab lurches through London's crooked streets. The back seat smells of stale cigarettes, and if she had anything left in her stomach it would reek of vomit, too. Their cabby keeps glaring at them in his rear-view, and occasionally mutters something dark, in Arabic or Farsi.

"She's fine," her captors reassure him. Cathy steadies her head against her shoulder, and rubs circles at the back of her neck. "You're okay, you're okay."

She wishes it were true. She is a long, long way from 'okay'. The last time she was 'okay', she was tucked up behind the bed curtains in Gryffindor Tower, about to find out what Professor Snape thought of her polyjuice equations. She'd like to be back in that innocent ignorance. Because having found out what he thinks of _her_ is a reality she is unprepared to cope with. She's crying again, and snotting up Cathy's coat.

"Come _on_ ," Maddie's tone drips exasperation, "If you're that broken up over your husband divorcing you, what the hell were you doing with Snape?"

"I'm not cry—crying over _him_. I just—I want—" she hiccoughs a sob, "Why doesn't anyone want me, what's so wrong with _me_?"

"Oh God," Maddie groans. "Listen, silly, don't take it so personally, you're just not his type."

"I know. You are: he's in for sporty, popular redheads. Fucking Lily."

"Wait, who's Lily?"

"Lily Evans. Potter. Harry's mum." Oh, no, they won't know who Harry is. "He went to school with her, he was in love with her."

" _Her?_ Like, of the female persuasion, 'her'?" Maddie's mouth is hanging open. Hermione is pleased to see that there is at least one expression that doesn't make the redhead look mischievous and cute.

"Yeah. She was pretty, like you. Maybe prettier. I saw her photo, Harry has some. Maybe if I were pretty, he would've kissed me back." She sniffles, but it's no good, the tears just keep welling up, and they're draining down her nose, and no one will ever want to kiss someone who cries down their nose.

"Hang on, we're talking about Severus Snape, here? You're saying he's not gay? _How is that even possible_?"

"Maddie, darling, the vast majority of humanity is heteronormative."

"Yeah, but _Snape?_ "

"Why are you so confused about this? Apparently he's straight, what's the problem?"

"I just have a hard time reconciling that with the evidence – I mean, I don't think he's ever even glanced at my tits!"

She's stopped crying, and now she sits bolt upright, even though her stomach protests the change in position. They think Snape is gay. He's _not_ sleeping with Maddie. Hope is spiralling up through her, except —

…that means it really is her. He doesn't want her. "He would rather have a dead woman, than me," she tells her new friends.

"Wait, what now?"

"Lily. She died. When Harry was a baby. Professor Snape loved her forever. That's probably why he's so sad about being alive, because he wanted to be with her again."

Maddie is shaking her head. "There. _That_ is all the proof anyone needs. If that's even remotely true, I rest my case, Cathy: he _is_ a mopey muppet."

"You don't know the facts, Maddie. Maybe this is recent, people go through bereavement at different rates—"

"Oy, Cinderella, you with us? Contribute: how long ago was this, when did this Lily-bint kick the bucket?"

"Hallowe'en. '81."

Maddie flails out her arms, and flops back against the seat. "Christ Jesus. I'm done. Muppet. Mopey fucking muppet. And I'm going to tell him, so, too." She frowns spectacularly, and subsides into silence.

Hermione considers this a good thing, because her head hurts.

It hurts when she wakes up, too, and she hadn't thought it could be any worse than the blinding pain that had her collapsing on the stairs up to her flat the night before, but it is. It definitely is. She sees they've left a glass of water and the paracetamol on her nightstand. She downs two tablets, and gravely considers the rest of the bottle.

It's a way to do it.

Maybe later. Her stomach is not happy about the water she's just put in it. She closes her eyes, sinks back into the pillow.

She doesn't know how much time has passed; she thinks she may have slept. The scents of ginger and lemongrass are tickling her nose, which is bizarre, because her flat usually smells of boiled cabbage from the neighbours'. The other thing – which is no less strange – is the soothing sensation of someone stroking her hair.

"Good morning. Or good afternoon, rather. I apologize for intruding; I worried, when you didn't answer my knock."

Severus Snape is sitting on the edge of her bed.

Clearly, she's still intoxicated.

"I've been given to understand, at great length and considerable volume, that I am the most dastardly of villains, and that it was utterly churlish of me not to have called you a cab, at the very least," he continues, his voice as soft as his fingertips, which are still gently brushing her hair, "I am sorry. I hope you'll forgive me. As some small measure of atonement, I've fixed you tea; it'll help with the hangover. Not quite as quickly as Hangover Relief would, but I wasn't in any shape to brew this morning, myself. Do you think you can sit up?"

She nods, carefully. Her neck muscles are back under voluntary control, so perhaps this is real, and she's sobering up. He hooks an arm about her torso, as he did the evening before, and helps her to lean up against the headboard. She accepts the steaming herbal tisane that he presses into her quivering fingers, and sips tentatively. There's fennel, and mint too, and something floral lurking beneath the lemongrass and ginger. Her stomach doesn't rebel, which is a very good thing: as long as she can sit here sipping tea, she doesn't have to say anything. She doesn't know what to say. Apparently he doesn't, either.

But his arm is still wrapped around her shoulders.

* * *

 _ **Author's Note:** As a heads-up, if you're interested in reading or partaking in conversation about any of my fiction, there are some interesting threads over on Archive of Our Own (.org), where I post under the same username. _


	21. Admissions

_**Author's Note:** There is a reasonable chance that I will cease to update this story, or anything, on FFN. "Guest", you are seemingly desperate for a shout-out, well, here it is. To reiterate what I have long maintained: I appreciate and enjoy constructive criticism. And I do thank all of you who choose to spend some time reading, and who leave me with some of your thoughts._

* * *

 **Part XXI**

If a shower accomplishes nothing else, at least it rids her of the rank stench of ethanol clinging in her pores, washes away the shame of vomit. She's hiding in here, now. The hot water charm is paying dividends, because it's been at least half an hour, and the water temperature hasn't changed a bit. It was a tricky bit of magic to do; most charms end when the caster stops maintaining them. She'd built a time delay into this one, the way you do with a ward. She's proud of it, even if she's not proud of herself.

She wishes she could convince herself that the steam is some purifying ritual, that she will emerge from here whole, competent, capable. But her mind is not flexible enough to accept that elaborate of a fantasy.

Snape is gone, but not far. He's told her he would wait for her outside. She does, and does not, want to see him. Does, and does not, want to know why he has come. What was it he had said, that he'd been told off at great length and considerable volume? If he has come solely at the behest of Maddie and Cathy, he has surely done his duty. Why stay, why wait? He made his opinion of her clear. Unless Maddie's right, and he is gay. But no, Harry had told her about every single memory. She grits her teeth. Bloody Harry. Harry, who is so self-centered that he can't see when other people are in pain, can't even imagine that they might be.

Well, this is not quite fair. He'd dragged her out of her bed. But she isn't going to forgive him for failing to tell her what Ronald has been up to. _It's not important_ , he'd said. And she isn't going to forgive him for subjecting her to literal hours of discourse on the subject of Severus Snape and Lily Evans. So what if none of the Weasleys were available, too locked in their own grief to coddle him? So what if he didn't have anyone else to talk to? She hadn't needed to hear it, hadn't need to be subjected to countless renditions of Lily's demeanour, unending queries as to whether she thought anything was truly serious between the pair. What does he mean, serious? She knows what he's asking: d'you think my perfect mum slept with greasy Snape? It doesn't even matter, does it? He died for her. That in itself means so much more than the possibilities that keep Harry up at night, and she doesn't understand how he could be ignorant of it, why he _chooses_ to ignore it. Except, of course, that Snape as a person is completely incidental to him.

She works some more conditioner into her hair. She's been here long enough that it's all washed out.

Perhaps Snape as a person is completely incidental to her, too. He exists in her mind as a possibility, no more. If he is mouldering in an unmarked grave, she is free to make a dream lover of him. If he is locked up tight with Lily, or Maddie, then he is something safe for angry, jealous daydreams. But if he is here?

He _is_ here. And she is hiding in her shower.

Her sober self is humiliated by more than his dismissal of her advance. She is humiliated at having pulled the stunt in the first place. He has never, _ever_ given her any indication that he sees her as anything more than a student. It is only in her own warped brain that anything else has ever occurred. Looked at from that angle, last night makes perfect sense. He'd said _friends_. And she'd heard – what?

She should apologize to him.

She needs to get a grip on reality and stop living in fantasies, because she's starting to confuse the two. Penance is called for. It's as good a starting point as any, in this quest to reunite her skewed perceptions with objective facts. And this gives her a reason to get out of the shower.

There is a steaming cup of tea waiting for her, on the narrow countertop beside her stove. By the scent, it's more of his hangover remedy. But she's been in the bath for ages so – hmm. She extends a hand over it, and concentrates hard. " _Finite incantatem._ " It actually works: the steam ceases to spiral immediately. She really has to make an effort to learn some of these things, because she hadn't known you could do heating spells wandlessly, either. Or, no. No. What she _has_ to do, is find her wand.

After she finishes this tea. And after she apologizes to Professor Snape.

"Feeling more human?" He _is_ waiting for her, leaned up against the boot of an automobile parked on the street outside her building. He folds up his newspaper, and looks at her expectantly.

"Quite a lot better, yes. Thanks for bringing that tea 'round. Is it hibiscus, the floral notes?"

"No, that's more of a cranberry taste, a bit tart. I tossed a few in, but the floral, perfumed taste comes from lavender, which is also good for GI upsets."

"It's your own formula, then?"

"Recipe, rather. Nothing so precise and scientific as a formula. But I find it works better than pepto and paracetamol. Hasn't got a touch on Hangover Relief, though. Someone should find a way to extend the shelf-life on that. There's your next project, give those of us who lack foresight a helping hand."

"Well, you had enough foresight to lay in three bottles."

"Oh, that's not foresight, that's masochism. But! I did have the foresight to grab a Tube map for you. So maybe there's hope I'm developing the capacity." He beckons her over, and yes, he's got a map of the Underground spread across the car's boot. He's circled parts of it with a fine-tipped felt pen.

"Victoria Line to King's Cross St Pancras, and then the Northern to Angel. That gets you close to Grimmauld Place. If that's where you intended to apparate last night, it's a reasonable place to start looking."

"That was my thought. Thanks, can I hang on to this?"

"No, of course not, I went to the trouble of bringing it just to taunt you." He even rolls his eyes.

"It's very thoughtful of you."

He gives her a narrow-eyed glare. "I'll thank you to keep that kind of slander to yourself. Are you up to fish and chips?"

She's not sure she wants to put anything at all past her tongue, let alone "Your idea of a healthy breakfast?"

"Of course not. And it's after two in the afternoon. It's hardly my fault you've slept right through breakfast. Oh, no, actually, I suppose it is. My fault."

"No, it isn't. I'm the one who poured the wine down my gullet. Sorry for being a shite drinking mate."

"We'll stick to beer, next time."

He anticipates a next time? She swallows hard. "Umn, about last night."

"Least said, soonest mended." He nods sharply.

"I just wanted to apologize. I was wholly out of line."

"You weren't the only one. But if you insist on offering an apology, you can do so by helping me find a chippy around here. It may have escaped your attention, but people actually do need to consume things resembling food, on occasion. And yes, before you ask, I rifled your pantry. I _was_ going to fix you eggs and toast, but you'll have to settle for greasy potatoes and dubious battered fish of presumably marine origin."

The notion of Professor Snape rummaging her cupboards should be disconcerting in the extreme, but his air of peevishness sets her laughing. "Well, when you put it like that, I can hardly wait."

"Maybe we can even find a bench down by the Thames, get the proper atmosphere for it."

"What, like over a drainage pipe?"

"That would be nearly ideal; the finest of British cuisine, _al fresco_ – it demands a certain sense of style."

Of course, there aren't much in the way of benches along her neighbourhood's stretch of the river – there's a reason she apparates farther east for her walks - but they settle with their takeaway in a public green. "It's got a fountain, at least," she says philosophically, although with the pump off for the winter it's become a catchment for stray cigarette butts.

"Might be a bit too sophisticated," he opines, "We've only got paper serviettes."

Once she begins picking at her meal, she realises she's hungry. And it is good, sinfully so. "Is this your secret vice?" she asks around a mouthful.

"I suppose. Cheap drink and bad novels being well-known vices, these days. And just casually buying a meal like this, that _is_ a vice. You probably saw where I grew up."

"Cokeworth?"

"Mmhmm. Awful hole of a place; only having magic kept it livable. Magic doesn't put food on the table, though, and you can't trade it in for takeaway, more's the pity. It might actually be good for something, otherwise."

"Magic's good for plenty of things, but I take your point. Don't you miss being on the Wizarding side, though, even a bit?"

He regards a chip with an air of deep contemplation. "Sometimes. No, not really. On the balance, my having been there did neither me nor the wizarding world any good whatsoever."

"You were integral in winning the war."

"Because I told Potter how the game was stacked? Anyone could've done. Dumbledore could have done. Should have, really."

Well. There is justice in this. "I don't know why he didn't."

"Albus felt Potter needed coddling. Ever so much better to receive news that you need to die from the person you hate most, instead of from a surrogate parent-figure."

"Which made no sense, really," she puts in, "To imagine that Harry would trust you. I'm astonished he did, that he took your memories at face value."

"So am I, if we're being honest. Even with the memories I gave him. Though, it may have improved verisimilitude to have looked rather dead at the time. Still, it was a shite plan, and I told Albus so. Repeatedly. _My_ plan was much better."

"Go on." Because she can see he's keen to. His eyes are glinting.

"I was going to tell you."

This admission catches her in mid-bite. She blinks, then remembers that she was chewing. Finishing this gives her the moment she needs. "Was that… was that why you commented on my work, why you kept writing to me?" It is such a horribly possible possibility, and certainly he is the sort who would lay a plan that deep. When had she begun working solely on polyjuice? Sixth Year.

"No. That was… not premeditated, on my part. And no part of it was a good idea, either. It was a risk, and I should never have risked Albus' plans in so self-centered a fashion. But later, after… after the Astronomy Tower, I thought that, well, at least… If I ever got the opportunity to approach you, you'd have some small reason not to hex me outright. So, I thought, maybe it hadn't really been a bad thing. Or not too bad." There are points of colour on his cheekbones. He is looking away, as if he is admitting some terrible crime. There is nothing terrible, that she can see, in his wishing that someone, anyone – even a silly Gryffindor girl – might not think the worst of him.

And so when she speaks, it's to this certainty. "I meant it. What I said. That I never truly believed you were really on Voldemort's side. I'd have listened, if… Well, if I'd had the chance."

"I was, though. On his side."

"In the first war."

"Yes. You would do well not to forget that."

"I—I don't think I am. But I know you. Or, I know… I know enough. I know enough to know that you are fundamentally someone who makes the right choices. Perhaps not the best choices, but ones that are right in one degree or another. And it's our choices that define us. Harry's always telling everyone that, apparently it's a Dumbledore quote."

"Wouldn't surprise me, it sounds the sort. Personally, I never found a single bit of Dumbledore's supposedly-sage advice that ever worked as well in practise as in theory. Often quite the opposite."

"You don't think we're defined by our choices?"

"I think it's an incomplete picture. Motive, motivation, and our intentions matter. Not just the outward effects of our having chosen something. Oh, and circumstance, the context – sometimes the only choice you _can_ make is a bad one."

She nods. "I know that too. Or I appreciate it, at least. I have made… some bad choices, you could say. And yet, I don't know… I don't think I'm a bad person. Or I don't want to be, anyway. It's complicated. Reality complicates things."

"That accounts for why some people choose not to live there, I expect."

"In reality?"

"Mmm."

"Do you? Live there."

He levels a sideways look at her, and a corner of his mouth twitches up, in what she thinks might be sly appreciation. She hadn't really meant it as a barb. She is simply curious, because perhaps she is not alone in this affliction.

"Debateable, really. Sometimes." His expression turns wistful, and he looks away over the park, "You can always tell when you are, or not, because those are the bits that hurt."

"What are the parts that particularly hurt for you?" She is risking a lot, asking something this personal.

"Oh, lots of things. I could be facetious and say 'waking up.'"

"Days like today, I could agree with you." She is going to have to give him something in kind, if she wants a real answer. She's not sure she does. She chews meditatively at her cod. "It hurts for me when I look up from what I'm doing. When I stop working on an idea, and look around, and realise I haven't got anyone to share it with."

"Why haven't you forged professional networks? People speak well of your work, I'm told."

She swallows. The chip seems to lodge in her throat. Or is that regret? "Ronald wouldn't have… I didn't want to make things tense. He… he was excluded from my work; I think he felt like an outsider."

"So because he was a virtual outsider, you took it upon yourself to remain a literal one?"

"N-nooo, not exactly. I… It's just that, it was a decision I'd made. To marry him. And I felt like, well, it was up to me to make some concessions. If I wanted concessions from him."

"Very high-minded of you, indeed. And what concessions did the magnanimous Mr. Weasley grant you? I suppose he offered his unwavering support of your pursuit of …anything?"

She huffs a breath of laughter and pulls a sarcastic smile. "Not really, no. 'Though, he did eventually stop giving me grief about scarpering off to the attic to work. And he let me keep the books. Your books, I mean." She's not about to tell him about the other thing that Ronald stopped giving her grief over. Because he never really did, even if he did take 'no thanks, not tonight' for an answer.

Snape is shaking his head, his mouth twisted in a disbelieving sneer. "It's incomprehensible to me."

"Er, what is?"

"Whatever animal magnetism it is that draws such profoundly incompatible people together."

"Maybe… maybe people just look incompatible from the outside, maybe we don't see the whole of who they are together."

"Weasley and yourself?"

"Oh, no, that's fairly incomprehensible." She pokes a chip into her mushy peas.

"So what was it, then? Indulge my curiosity. It can't have been his quidditch fame."

"Oh, but didn't you know? I'm the definition of a quidditch groupie. I very nearly snogged Viktor Krum, once."

"Careful, I'm rapidly losing all respect for you."

"Honestly? It's embarrassing. No, strike that, it's mortifying and humiliating, and I can't believe I'm actually going to tell you. I married him because he got me up the duff."

"Oh. I – I'm sorry, I hadn't realized. Are you, d'you have, erm, visitation rights, at least?"

It takes her a bit to understand what he's asking. "Oh, no. I… I miscarried. I… really, in retrospect it's all for the best."

"Retrospect. That's a bitter pill, at times, isn't it?" She assumes this question is rhetorical, and watches him chew another of his chips. She can't recall ever seeing him eat, before. She supposes she'd never looked. Why on earth does this interest her now?

"You know, of course, that the frontal lobes of your brain aren't fully mature until about age 25? We make fairly terrible decisions in our adolescent years. Although, evidence suggests your thirties aren't all that much better."

"Is that last to my direction as well?"

"Er, no. I was thinking of my own life, actually. Though, now that you mention, I have to confess it's still sometimes a bit odd, thinking of you as an adult. What are you now, thirty-six?"

It's sometimes a bit odd for her, too. "It's impolite to ask a woman her age, didn't you know?" She isn't yet, but it is quite an adult age, isn't it? And yet, she doesn't _feel_ like an adult. He'd already been corresponding with her via marginalia, when he was only a little older than she is now. Does this put something in perspective?

He makes a brushing motion with his fingertips. "Me? Impolite? Perish the notion."

"When does a person really finally grow up? When do you finally stop making daft decisions?"

"When is it safe to finally rely on your sense of judgment, you mean? I'd direct you to that inimitable fount of wisdom, Albus Dumbledore, only he asked someone to murder him, which was clearly a daft decision, so perhaps your answer is 'never'."

"Oh good." She picks at a chip of her own.

"On the positive side, consider the law of averages – everyone else is apt to be making stupid decisions too, so they probably won't notice yours, as long as you're within the average and not an egregious outlier."

That _is_ a bleakly optimistic way of looking at things. Still, she thinks she'd like to change the topic, if he'll let her. Perhaps there's a more painful subject they can discuss than her personal failures. "What was it, with Dumbledore?"

"What do you mean? It was a fairly standard killing curse, you would have learned about them in fourth year."

"I mean, was he your friend? Was it hard?"

He busies himself with wiping the salt and vinegar from his fingertips before answering her. This is fine, she'd need more time than he takes, to compose herself to answer a question like that. "It was… shattering. You take every bit of pain, every ounce of anger you can summon. You pour that out, and in that moment, you must truly desire to cause harm."

It must be the breeze that is making her feel cold and shivery. His words are so calm, so matter-of-fact.

"It has taken me many years to feel that I had any right to that anger. It horrifies me still that I found it, after so long a time. It depresses me that he knew I still encompassed it. And that he never truly forgave it, always held that in abeyance. Couldn't ever admit culpability, admit that my anger was rational."

She swallows hard. Something doesn't make sense, in what he's telling her. If only she can find the right question to ask… She wants to ask, why was he angry with Dumbledore? But she knows the answer – Dumbledore had promised to safeguard his childhood love, and had failed.

"He was not… not omniscient, and never perfect," she reminds him.

"He was not."

"Perhaps… perhaps in asking you to do that… perhaps that was an admission? That he understood, accepted your anger."

"Hunh. That… Thank you, Miss Granger. That is… I had not considered that. It's probably a whitewash; I know too well how he despised me. But on a cosmic level, perhaps it holds. There is some little comfort in that, I imagine." He has leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, eyes cast at the brick pavers.

She watches as a passerby startles the nearby flock of pigeons into flight. She doesn't know what else to say, doesn't know how hard she can pry. Although, if she offends him badly enough, he will surely put an end to this, and that might be for the best. All things considered. Anyway, she's thought of something that might be the right question. At the very least, it's a question that she doesn't really know the answer to. "You said, earlier: adolescence is a poor time to make decisions. What were yours? Why did you join them, the Death Eaters?"

"Are you asking me if I harbour any of their sentiments?" His voice is suddenly very empty, and his eyes, meeting hers, are dead-flat.

"No. I know you don't."

"What if I told you that I did?"

"I'd call you a liar," she says evenly.

His eyes release hers. He's looking down at his fingers, which are crushing the cardboard of his takeaway box. He chews at the inside of his lip. She wonders if it's a nervous tic, or just something he does when he's thinking. She doesn't recall that he ever did it at school, although those performances were surely just that, and little more.

"I wanted power," he says after a long while. "I thought they could give it to me. Your expression - no, not real power. Not the kind of power that would do me any good whatsoever in life. What I wanted was the power to destroy. My dearest desire, back then…"

Was what? Lily. The power to destroy James? Does she want to believe this of him, that he could be so possessive and calculating, could be so viciously self-absorbed as to believe that Lily would have anything to do with him, if he'd been responsible for destroying the life she'd chosen—

"My sole motivation, from the time I left school, was nothing more than the complete and utter destruction of the Ministry of Magic, and of the Wizengamot. Especially them. I wanted to pull the place down, to crucify the bastards. Nothing would have pleased me more than to douse Albus Dumbledore in petrol. Not a simple killing curse. Fire. Fire and agony. How galling, to crawl back to him, to have to depend upon him as my saviour from Azkaban."

It is somehow even more terrible that he says all of this in the lightest of tones, as if he is commenting upon the weather. Saliva keeps flooding her mouth.

"You look horrified. You should be. I am, myself. You asked, earlier, if I considered Dumbledore a friend. I did. He was. The last I had, really."

"Are you… are you quite sure you know the definition of that word?" She is a bit shocked at her own audacity.

He smirks. "What, you've never wanted to set your friends on fire?"

She really, truly, should not find this funny.

"I never did torch anyone," he continues, more soberly, "But through my actions, people nonetheless perished. Good people. And if some weren't good, well, their crimes were not so heinous that they deserved to die."

"Do you mean…" She trails off. Her footing has become so uncertain. She thought she'd understood his past, but does she know anything true?

"Potter the Rotter. His wife."

"Why you turned back to Dumbledore." She needs to clarify this point.

"I suppose. Some of it was coming to my senses and realizing quite what a mess I had gotten myself into."

"But you cared for her."

He nods. "She was my friend." He seems to think she will understand this simple statement implicitly. When she doesn't immediately respond, he expands: "Not then. Not for a few years, by then. But she had been. She was a last link with the past. I… I valued that. Without her, there was… just emptiness, there. Nothing true, anymore. A friend is… for me, rare. Someone who knows you, knows the truth of you. Because who are you, when everything is a pretense, everything built on lies and posturing?"

"I don't know." And she doesn't. Her own adult life has been built of too many – if not lies, then certain omissions of truth. "The memories you gave Harry. At the end."

He gives her a long, steady look. "Who are you, when everything is a pretense?"

"You were willing to die for her. Harry believed—"

"Exactly what Dumbledore needed him to. In the beginning, I was, maybe. Willing to die. Or at least, death seemed very welcoming. Death is easy. Living is hard. And yet here I am."

"So what are you living for?"

"Because I'm a coward, maybe?"

"There's a gap in that logic," she feels compelled to point out, "A coward would die, if living is hard."

"Then maybe… Maybe I live in hope. Except that sounds trite and stupid, particularly as I am doing nothing towards anything I might hope for."

"Nothing?"

He shrugs. "I can't be. Because there _is_ nothing that I hope for. Or rather, the things I want are impossible things."

She wants to ask him what they are, but she cannot. This is too raw, this gaping wound where her understanding of the world once resided. She also very much _does not_ want to ask him what these impossible things might be. Because she knows that she is not one of them.

Masochism rules the day, if only as a whisper: "Why didn't you kiss me back?"

He snorts, and his lip curls in disgust. "Tell me. Truthfully. Now that you're sober, and now that you know these things – would you really have wanted me to?"

She has to look away from the bitter challenge in his dark eyes. She looks at her hands, instead. Does she owe him better than this, ought she to meet his eyes when she answers? He has given her truth. But she can't. Can't even answer, not properly. "I don't know. I think, I think yes. But I don't know."

By rights he'll stomp her now, now that she's exposed this vulnerability. But he doesn't. Instead, he's now looking at his own hands. His fingernails are pressing little half-moons into the flesh of his palm. It has to hurt, but his face is tense and stony. The slightest edge of his lower lip is clamped between his teeth, whitened from pressure.

"So last night was, what, a pre-emptive rejection?" she asks. She's desperate for him to say something, anything. If he would even move, ease this unbearable pressure. He's going to draw blood soon, she thinks.

Enough. She reaches over and wrenches his hands apart. "Stop it." With the pads of her thumbs she scrubs at the red crescents in his palm.

"Not a rejection, no." He's looking at her again, and this time she chances meeting his eyes. He looks bewildered, and some more parts of her world – not the very foundations or walls, just a buttress or two, but important parts nonetheless – collapse in this instant. He can never be Professor Snape again. Because now she reads terror and confusion, hope and hurt in every tensed line of his visage. Only Severus could be this lost, Severus this broken by disclosing truth.

"If you mean that, not a rejection, then do it. Kiss me now." And she leans forward, closes her eyes in anticipation of him turning away. She doesn't want to see it, not again.

But he doesn't.

She nearly startles, to feel the soft heat of his breath on her face. His lips are dry, and his angle awkward. It's clumsy, there's no other word. She tilts her head, and they fit together a little better. Not well, though; there is too much space between their bodies. Before she can resolve this, he has broken off, pulled away.

He pulls back entirely, his spine ramrod straight. Again, he's not looking at her, he's staring straight ahead. A muscle twitches below his jaw.

But he kissed her.

She told him to, and he did.

That means something, doesn't it? She throws caution to the wind, shuffles down along the bench until their thighs are touching. Grasps his chin, and demands that he look at her, insists upon his attention. And she has it. His eyes are wide like something wild, and she gentles her grip, extends her fingers along his jawline, his sharp cheekbones, to softly cradle his face in the frame of her hands. She leans in, so close that they are inhaling the same air. Slowly, not breaking his gaze, she presses forward, touches her forehead against his for a long moment. "Severus," she whispers.

She begins at the corner of his mouth, where that mocking little smile so often lurks. His lips open, she feels him draw a sharp breath. So she slants her mouth over his, and gives him hers.


	22. Disclosure

**Part XXII**

His eyes are closed, and she is entranced by the startling contrast of his lashes against his pale skin. She wants to study them, but her own eyes keep slipping shut. Kissing him is like a drug, or maybe her brain is running short of oxygen. Because her world has shrunk down to this microcosm of intermittent pressure and yielding, the feel of his teeth beyond lips that press, that soften, that open. She can feel his hands in her hair; her own are tangled in his.

And then he releases her, pulls back and away, and she's completely lost.

But it's his mobile ringing. He fishes it out of his pocket, and stares at it as if he has forgotten what it is, what he's supposed to do with it. She sees his chest rising, falling, too quickly. His cheekbones are flushed, his narrow lips plumped from the assault she's practised upon them. He blinks, rapidly. "Sorry, but—Sorry, I need to take this."

She nods and settles back against the narrow slats of the park bench. Crosses her arms, crosses her legs. Tries not to overhear his conversation, which is impossible. She can hear a woman's voice issuing, tiny and tinny, from where she's sitting. Should she leave? She can't, she has to talk to him. This isn't over.

"Lindauer? Oh, you mean Roz! Yes, by all means, absolutely you should let her in. Tell her, tell her I'll be there in—" he shoves his coat sleeve up to check his watch; she catches another glimpse of dark ink. "Half— no, best call it an hour, I'm across town. Get her set up with tea, would you? And there should be some bickies in the tin, up by the coffee."

The other side's response to this is quite audible: "I'm not your bloody hostess. Get a wife, go chase after Cinderella, why don't you?"

"Maddie, could you please?" He sighs, taps the phone, and returns it to his pocket. "Erm."

She stands abruptly; her courage has completely fled. "Right. I have to—I have to find my wand."

"And I need to head back to the Wick." He stands as well, and readjusts his coat.

"Right. Right then. I'll uh, I'll see you, then."

He nods, and then the points of colour across his cheekbones inexplicably spread over his face, until he's blushing outright. "Let—let me know how it goes. With your wand. And... Er, if you wanted, erm, you could come 'round to mine. For dinner. If—well—"

She exhales, finally. "Yes! Alright, that sounds great. I'll see you this evening."

"Right." He nods sharply at her, turns on his heel, and strides off across the park.

She collapses back onto the bench. It's the strangest combination: her knees won't support her, and she's overwhelmed by the need to squirm in utter glee. Unless she's very badly mistaken, _she's on a promise_. She has to cover her manic grin with both hands. But in moments, the feel of her fingertips against her face begins a spiral into reverie, remembering the feel of his mouth and his teeth gently scraping her lower lip. She imagines, as a soft lassitude seeps out from her spine, that her own fingertips are his, imagines his thumb stroking across her lip, imagines that she might, with the tip of her tongue, invite it into her mouth.

She takes a heaving breath, and opens her eyes fully. A park bench is no place for _this_. And she does need to track down her wand.

It's astonishing that she manages to navigate the Tube; it's probably only down to the instructions he'd given her, because her mind pays no attention whatsoever to the automated voices calling out the stops. She's too busy thinking of: the rough feel of his woollen coat contrasting with the smooth strands of his fine hair, of the earthy undertones beneath his pine-resin aftershave, of the slightly-salty taste of his skin, of the feel of his nose hard against her cheekbone as she plundered his mouth, touching her tongue to the inside of his lips. Of how his nose might feel pressed against more intimate places. Of what his skin might taste like elsewhere. Of what he might smell like, up close and in the dark.

It's almost a relief to be back into the sunlight, with a sharpish breeze tugging at her hair. She breathes in deeply, of vehicle exhaust and notes of fried food, a touch of cigarette smoke. None of the odours that fill her nostrils or linger on her tongue remind her of bedroom scents, and this is a necessary thing, a blessing in her current frame of mind.

A brisk walk clears most of it from her system, and being met at the door of 12 Grimmauld Place by Harry's brood does for the remainder.

"Auntie Hermie!" Lily clings to her legs and won't be shaken free.

Jamie's greeting is more circumspect, and actually a bit accusative. "Why didn't you come for Christmas with Uncle Ron?" Al is nodding along; he has a selective mutism when his elder brother is around to do all the talking.

Ginny intervenes and chivvies the children off. "Hermione, you look, uh, you look well! Take your coat off, will you have a cup of tea?"

"Sure, yes, that'd be lovely. Sorry," she confesses in undertone, "I didn't think to bring anything for the kids."

"They don't need anything. Harry loaded me up with so much chocolate yesterday that the kids are well-set into next month. Those last ten pounds from Lily - Harry seems determined to sabotage my ever losing them."

"You don't need to lose weight!" she dutifully responds.

"Urgh, I do though. Else I'll end up exactly like Mum." Ginny is rattling up the tea service.

"Could be worse things," she offers.

"True, true. But let's talk about you!" With a smart tap of her wand, Ginny stops the kettle whistling, and pours boiling water into the teapot.

"I'm not a terribly interesting item for conversation, I'm afraid." Does Ginny know? How can she not? Those incredulous eyebrows she lifts in Hermione's direction say a hundred words and more.

Harry's arrival via the Floo interrupts whatever awkward conversational gambit Ginny is about to try next; instead, she busies herself with taking Harry's cloak and briefcase. He seems briefly alarmed to see Hermione in his kitchen, but by the time he's done greeting his offspring and overseeing whatever accomplishments they are evidently desperate to display in the sitting room, he's recovered his composure. He sidles back into the kitchen, buffing his glasses on a shirttail, and favours her with a warm grin. "How are you, Hermione? Are you staying to dinner?"

She can only answer the second of these questions. "No, I've—I'm expected elsewhere tonight."

Just how badly does she want to get into it with the Potters? Not very. She just wants her wand, so that she can apparate home, find something nice to wear, and maybe, _maybe_ do something with her hair. Would Severus like to pull pins out? Her brain stutters to a halt on the vision of his hands gently freeing her curls, how they would cascade down her bare back. And then she'd lean over him, and her hair would fall across his naked chest, she'd drag it across his—

Er, yes. Wand. She is here to find her wand. "Actually, I've come 'round in the hopes you've had a stray wand turn up here."

"Pardon?"

"My wand. You haven't seen it?" Her stomach is sinking.

"No, should we have?" They are both wearing equally perplexed expressions.

Shit. Double shit. Fuck. "I… Well, I splinched, last night, trying to apparate here."

"Merlin!" Ginny exclaims. "Was it very bad?"

"No, no," she hastens to reassure them, "I only splinched my shoes. And my wand. I didn't even know you _could_ splinch a wand."

Ginny looks suddenly enlightened, holds one finger up in the air for a quivering moment, then darts out of the room. In seconds she's back, triumphantly bearing, yes, the missing shoes. "No wand, though. These were fallen down the stairs in the entrance, I nearly tripped over them this morning."

"Maybe it's out in the garden? Let's go look!" Harry is immediately galvanized by this mystery. She tries hard not to be uncharitable, but it's obvious he's pleased she's here for some other reason than to discuss Ronald.

She humours him, while he criss-crosses the lawn methodically, but by the time he's pushing the rose bushes aside with a rake, she's had enough. "Couldn't you just summon it?"

"Uh, yes." He looks abashed. "That is to say, _Accio_ Hermione's wand." Nothing happens.

She sinks down onto their back step, a mournful "Damn it" escaping as a sigh.

Harry seats himself beside her. "You're having a pretty shite week, aren't you."

Well, he's gone and brought it upon himself, now. She takes a calming breath, but it doesn't help much. "Thanks for your part in it, by the way. You could have warned me, what he was going to do. Instead I got totally blindsided."

"I… yeah. Look, Hermione, I'm only going to say this once: I'm sorry. Things… things are complicated, and the Weasleys… I can't pick sides in this. You have to understand that. Ginny, and my kids, they have to come first. I'm sorry," he pleads.

Oh, she doesn't want to deal with Harry's emotions, too. It's far too much work. "Fine. I guess it's like an Elastoplast after all. Just rip it off and be done. Ronald and I…" She wants to tell him how deeply invested she was, for the better part of a fortnight, in reclaiming some fantasy of their lives together. She wants him to understand that she hadn't truly given up. And yet, she no longer cares. Ronald is… she's done with that. He kissed her, and that means something, and Ronald is so far from any of this that he has entirely ceased to matter. She sighs, because this is more than she can communicate to Harry, and it isn't Harry she really wants to tell, anyway. It is herself, maybe. "Molly led me to believe there was a chance we'd be reconciled, is all. I wanted that. So it hurt."

"Is that… why you were coming here, last night?"

"To yell at you some, yes. How long did you know?"

He hunches in and scrubs at his glasses again. Fidgeting. Finally he replaces them, and contemplates his shoes. They are brown and nondescript, so surely they cannot hold his attention long. "I'll keep an eye out for your wand; someone may have found it in the street, yeah? Maybe they'll turn it in to the Registry. Where do you need to go, tonight? I'll take you, side-along."

So that's the way it's going to be. "Back to my flat, please."

He ducks in to tell Ginny the details of this plan, and returns to offer her his arm. She takes it, because what else is she going to do? The apparition isn't even that bad, enough practise on Harry's part has evidently paid off.

He doesn't depart immediately. Instead, he looks around her flat. It's not in such bad order as it was the last time. Only her teacup, and her soiled dress robes, are evidence of the mess she was in last night. She frowns at the robes. She doesn't remember folding them up, and her outer robes are in the heap, too. She didn't have them in the taxi, did she? Had Severus — he must have done, must have found them along the street. "Can I fix you tea?" she finally asks.

He is studying Plant. Plant does not know what tea is, and would not want any, so she isn't sure what answer he intends to find in the course of this scrutiny. She puts the kettle on anyway; by the time he's figured it out, perhaps the water will be boiling.

"I didn't want to talk about this at Grimmauld Place. Ginny… Hermione, you have to realize, she's everything. I can't… I can't have her brought into this, and I can't make her choose between me and her family. Hell, I can't even really choose. Between the Weasleys and you, I mean. I wouldn't… Hermione, you've been my friend through all the hardest, all the worst possible times. You were there when no one else was. Don't ever forget that I know that."

"Harry, talking like that is beginning to scare me." Not really, but it's getting stranger by the minute.

"You should be scared. Look, if it comes out that I've told you this, it's… it's not going to go well. But you're right, it's not fair that you're going to be blindsided with it."

"What? Damn it, Harry, come to the point already." Now she is scared. Or at least, she thinks that's what this sick clenching feeling in her stomach might be.

"Okay, so you know how wizarding marriages differ from muggle ones?"

So this _is_ about Ronald's petition for divorce. She nods; it's a big territory, but she assumes he'll expand on his point.

"Right, so custody. Umn, when the marriage is mixed, kids go to the parent with the highest blood status. Like, if Ginny and I split up, she'd get the kids, because my mum was muggleborn."

"Harry, what is your _point_?" She hadn't known about this bit of pureblood nonsense but it doesn't surprise her. It also doesn't apply to her, so she doesn't see what he's getting at, other than a lesson in hegemony.

"I'm getting there," he says tersely. "So Molly's a Prewett, right? That's one of the oldest families, it's older than the Potters, even. So Prewett ranks higher."

" _Harry._ "

"I'm just trying to say – the Weasleys aren't just a pureblood family. They've got high-ranking bloodlines, and Molly… well, you can never accuse her of being obsessed with her bloodline, but you can rest assured she knows it. Gin says they never made anything of it, it never really came up when they were kids."

"Harry, please just show yourself out if you're not going to come to the point in the next minute and a half."

She can see him visibly grit his teeth. "Ron's claiming sole custody of your unborn child; the miscarriage you had. And in doing so, that automatically means he formally acknowledges it as pureblooded. In discovery, when you go up in front of the Wizengamot to hear the charges he's laying as grounds for divorce, he's going to accuse you of having aborted it. So under wizarding law, that's infanticide of a pureblood child."

She sits down, hard, on the edge of the bed, and can only gape at him.

"So now you know. Try to look upset and surprised, I guess."

"But that's insane!" she finally manages.

"Yeah. This is ugly as fuck, and… I felt like you should know. That's all." He rakes his fingers through his hair.

"He can't honestly expect to make that stick, he can't! Harry, what do I do?" she wails.

"I don't know. Get a good lawyer. Because if he wins this, the consequences for you are really shite."

"But! Oh god, you have to believe me, I never did!"

"Hermione, I… No, I don't think you did. But… I don't know. It doesn't matter what I think. It's the Wizengamot you have to convince."

She has dropped her head between her knees, because the room is pinching in blackness at the edges. She concentrates on slowing her breathing. Harry presses a hesitant hand to her shoulder. "Consequences. You said consequences. What consequences?"

Harry doesn't answer her, but he doesn't remove his hand, either. She chances a look up at him. The room is staying still now, so that's something. She sees his Adam's apple bob; he's swallowed. "What consequences?" she reiterates.

"They throw you out of the wizarding world. And that's the humane option. According to what Arthur was saying—" Wait, are all the Weasleys in on this? "—before the fifties, it was a straight-up Kiss. From the Dementors. I guess pureblood witches probably still go for that option, because they wouldn't make it as muggles."

"I believe," she says calmly, "That I am going to throw up."

She doesn't, which is a mercy, because fish and chips surely will not taste as good the second time around, but Harry does leave her curled against the toilet, quietly crying. The bathroom tiles are different, and so is the context, but this is a place she has been before. It is no more comfortable now.

* * *

 **[FFN posting hiatus]** I truly welcome your opinions and thoughts, and particularly your constructive criticism. However, leaving abusive and threatening comments on my work violates the spirit of constructive criticism. I _do not_ condone this behaviour, and as a result of it, I have chosen to suspend updates on FFN at this time. **Updates of this work (and others!) are available at Archive of Our** Own, where I post under the same username. You can also find me on LiveJournal (zigadenus. livejournal. com)


	23. Courtesy note:

Hello, friends - it's been brought to my attention that not everyone has seen my author's notes about this story. Please, if you're enjoying it thus far, come over to AO3 and read it there (there are 35 chapters up right now, for a total of 117k words!). I am continuing updates on AO3 owing to the trolling issues that have been rampant on FFN. I really don't need that sort of drama in my life, and AO3 offers a stellar and supportive community of readers and writers, as well as swift action against Anonytrolls. And nicer formatting options. So please, make the jump. If not for this story, then for all the other SS/HG authors already over there.

[22 March 2018] While I appreciate that many of you have strong feelings about my statements here, as an author it is my choice as to where to host my work. Please do not PM me solely to take me to task for this decision, or about my expressed opinions re: FFN vs AO3. It's not a productive conversation, and only increases my certainty that this was the correct choice. To readers who have offered their support in the past: **thank you**. I hope I'll see you on AO3 sometime in the future.


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